


RED BEAST - Book two : La Rochelle

by FreyaLor



Series: RED BEAST [2]
Category: French History RPF
Genre: 17th century French politics, Abuse, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bipolar Disorder, Dom/sub, Enemies to Lovers, Journey, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Recovery, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Trauma, Violence, historical fiction - Freeform, improvement, learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 23:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 62,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaLor/pseuds/FreyaLor
Summary: Ten years of Richelieu and Louis XIII's life, between 1624 and 1634, from Richelieu's first Royal Council to the Thirty Years War.Ten years of pure French History, with an added twist : Armand and Louis do more, much more than just work together for France.Don't be fooled by the historical details, the violence, the angst : this is gay romance, and nothing else. This is the ten-years journey of a lonely King learning to become a better man for the love of a visionary priest.BOOK TWO : The Siege War of La Rochelle (1627-1628)





	1. July 21th 1627, The King's bedroom, The Louvre, Paris.

I can fake sleep quite perfectly.

I learned that as a child. I had to. Gaston and I spent our days and our nights fighting. One of his favourite tricks was to crawl into my room at night and pour a jar filled with ice, charcoal, or _crickets_ into my bed. Since Mother or the preceptors were likely to believe him over me no matter what, his vivid imagination could run free with new means to torture me.

As time went by, the ice became nails, the charcoal embers, and the crickets spiders. I used to fake sleep more and more, unmoving in my bed, keeping my breathing even and my eyes just barely open, watching him approach through nothing more than slits, my tiny fist gripping a dagger under my covers.

I never wanted to remind him that I was his King before I was his brother, but after years of this nightmare, he left me no choice. It had to stop, or we might just have killed each other.

Gaston stopped. Or rather, he changed methods. But the skill I learned never left me.

The storm woke me up an hour ago. Thunder was roaring against my windows, the pouring rain was slapping the glass. But since I felt I wasn’t alone in my room, instead of opening my eyes and looking around, I faked sleep at first. It had been useful in the past.

And since this disease had gripped my lungs, more than ever.

Sickness is the same for all men, Princes and beggars alike. The same cough, the same sweat, the same shudders. The same undignified struggle to breathe, to eat, to pee. The same moment, in the darkest of night, as pain and exhaustion seem unbearable, when you silently prepare to make arrangements with God.

The sickbed of a King is the same as any other man's. But everything around is different.

The Louvre, usually a buzzing beehive of voices and footsteps, is silent as the grave under the raging storm. The Louvre is quiet. _The Court is thinking. _

  
  
The King is sick, and gravely so. Some people mourn; some people fear, and some of them are already preparing for what comes next, sealing contracts, offering deals. A few hungry smiles, I am sure, can already be seen in corridors and boudoirs.

The King is sick, and gravely so, without an heir to take over.

Many a heart is filled with _joy_ tonight.

So despite my ache and my exhaustion, I concentrate on lying still, careful not to open my eyes too much, inspecting those four men busying themselves around me. Those who step into my bedroom at night may not all be friends.

Though it seems, this time, that there will be no jar of ice, no crickets, no spiders. Only four men trying their best to save my life.

Citoys, the physician, his small frame and black coat unmistakable against the lightning.

Pottier, my Master Butler, his tall silhouette standing by the shelf, preparing stacks of washcloths and fresh linens.

Joseph, leaning against the door as if to block any intrusion, arms crossed and mouth tense, whispering what seem to be prayers, but could be muffled swearing for all I can hear.

And of course, how could I be surprised, leading the orchestra of all those minds and hands, _Du Plessis Richelieu. _

Since the sickness took me, no matter how many times I opened my eyes, may it be wide or just a slit, he was never absent once. I can count the days I have been nailed to that bed by each darkening circle around his own eyes, but he doesn't show a single sign of weakness. He slides around my bed, whispering orders, watching medicine be prepared, checking the food and the water. He's wearing himself out again, but I know by now he'll only collapse when I am standing.

When one of us breaks, the other grows stronger.

_This is who we are, this is the ballet we dance. _

Truly, it is all very logical. The Beast knows that the minute I am dead, he too is finished. The wolves are waiting for him outside, and he'll be shot down within the day. He might be The Eminentissime Minister, his mind unequalled, his rule unquestioned, but he's _nothing_ without my protection, and he's bloody well aware of it. His interest, above all else, is to keep me alive.

So, of course, his eagerness to see me taken care of isn't really _surprising. _

What _is_, though, is that strange, quiet minute, when he sends everyone out and stands still next to my bed. I make no move, not a hitch in my breath, not a twitch on my face. He doesn't notice I am awake.

“For God's sake, go to bed too!” I hear Joseph hiss. “You won't be of any use to him _dead_.”

I think I see a quick smile on Richelieu's lips as he sighs a little, and waves a tired hand towards the monk.

“I don't intend to die, Ezekielli.” He muses. Oh, that's how he calls him. _How fitting_.

Joseph growls his irritation and shuts the door behind him. Silence stretches on my bed, only disturbed by the furious rain and the rumble of the storm in the distance. This morning I heard Citoys say the Seine might rise above the quays. I feel a pang of worry for my dear Paris.

But not for long, because I catch the sigh of heavy silk as Richelieu lets himself fall into an armchair next to the window. I don't see much of him, barely an outline in red against the dark, but every now and then a flash of lightning gives a few seconds of brightness to the room. He rubs his face in his hands, I think, and I hear a low whimper, typically his. It makes me want to touch his hair again, but I only clench my fists harder under the sheets, watching the storm paint his usual silver hair in violent white.

He doesn't really look at me. He seems to be staring through the window, or around the room, and when he bites his thumb in worry again, sharp light on his ugly wounds tells me it's not the first time at all. Eventually, he turns his head towards the foot of my bed, where the small orchestra he summoned here yesterday has left their instruments and scores to be used again later.

He noticed I enjoy quiet music while those atrocious remedies are applied to my skin, or when Citoys asks me to swallow his countless herbs and broths, so he has them play for me twice every day, often until I fall asleep. When speech fails me, Richelieu himself chooses the songs to be performed.

I watch his silhouette lean down to the floor and pick up something I cannot see. The storm is fading, lightning is now scarce, and darkness rules over my room. God, my whole body hurts, my chest eaten by agony, and may it be to never wake up, I just want to go back to sleep. But I can't, truly, I cannot help watching him.

He sits back, and I think he lets out a soft chuckle. There's something large in his hands, I cannot see...-

_Oh, God. _

Music starts to play.

_He picked up the lute._

Delicate notes rise in the dark, bravely facing the angry storm, the pouring rain, the rising Seine. Starting slow, almost unsure, the song gradually grows confident, as a barricade against the flood. I know that song. Oh, Lord, I know that song. My father used to sing it, back in those days of summer light, when Mother was the sweetest thing Florence could ever offer. My father used to sing it, sitting next to me on my tiny bed, his rumbling accent of the South turning the words themselves into music.

I am not sure about my breathing anymore, because there are tears in my eyes now, and I am forced to close them tight.

He doesn't sing, though I wish he would, but he plays the tune with such grace, such gentleness, that my mind steps in to provide the old forgotten words, in my own father's voice.

_  
Fi de tristesse,_

_Vive liesse,_

_Puisqu'en Amour a tant de bien._

I grip the sheets, steeling myself so I don't move an inch, but I am not sure about my body anymore, because there is fire inside my heart now, rising high enough to break my resolve.

_  
Toute ma vie_

_Je l'aimerai,_

_Et chanterai :_

_C'est la première,_

_C'est la dernière,_

_Que j'ai servie, et servirai._

The song, lifted up to the skies by my father's ghost, defeats the storm, chases darkness. I cling to every note, drinking it like fresh water, blissfully opening the curtains to let summer light in. The lute whispers about warmth and innocence, played by deft, elegant hands.

_Armand. _

He doesn't need to do that. It isn't logical, it isn't necessary. It isn't just _keeping me alive_. He plays the lute for me in the middle of the night, exhausted, white as a sheet, and he doesn't even know I am listening. It isn’t logic, it isn’t politics.

  
It's something more, something wide, something _terrifying_.

It is more than welcoming my hands; much more than offering his neck to my fire.

It is - _oh, God._

It has a name I don't want to think, it has consequences I don't want to face, so I focus on the music, diving desperately in long gone days.

The song is short, but he plays the last part twice, and he plays it perfectly. My exhausted body feels embraced by my father once more, his thick, strong arms picking me up and lifting me to the ceiling.

_“Ay! Mon fils!”_

A pitiful sob tearing itself from my throat turns to a nasty cough, shaking me like a rag doll, making Armand jump and lay the lute aside; _please, no._

He swiftly runs to my bed and kneels at my side, his slender hand brushing my forehead, and that fire in my heart explodes, turning me into a gasping, feverish mess, _Heavens, is this how I die? _The pouring rain lashes on the windows and everything is dark. Pain is maddening, thrusting daggers all over my body, cold sweat sliding along my back. I cannot see, I cannot breathe, all I know is the touch of his hands, the smell of his tea, and I want to grab his hair, and I want his mouth on mine if it’s the last thing I feel, _God have mercy,_ you knew I wouldn’t be able to ignore those flames much longer.

But as I open my eyes, at last, to look for his face, he slides away from me and comes back with a glass of water. He makes me drink half of it without a word and eases me down on the bed. Blindly, his shaking hand searches for one of mine under the covers. He lifts it to his lips, kisses it gently, and before he retreats back into darkness, a bit too hastily maybe, he just breathes into my palm, “_please, Your Majesty, be there tomorrow morning._”

I want to call him back, I want to order him to play that song again, because my father is sitting next to me on my bed, and I want him to stay.

I want to call him back, because that thing I cannot name, I want to see it again, I’m afraid I never knew what it looked like, and I want it to stay.

But I can only cough for one more painful minute, and when it's finally over, breathless, dizzy, I feel darkness crawling through my mind, erasing the face of my father, and though I want to reach for him – for them - with everything I am, sleep crushes his name on my chapped lips.

*** 

Morning has come_. And I am here_.

I am here, my pain has gone. My throat is still sore, my skin clammy and white, but when I open my eyes, lying on my side in that wide bed of mine, I only see sunlight.

“He's awake!” Citoy's voice cries, and that sigh of joy I hear behind me can't be anyone’s but Armand's.

I blink, trying to sit up with weak, clumsy arms. The physician immediately rushes to my side, pushing me upwards with an incredible force. I try to shake away the thick fog in my head, refusing one more broth with a repulsed hiss.

I turn towards the sigh I heard and, of course, he's there. Radiant in summer light, hands joined on his heart, silver hair aglow with the midday sun. Behind him, the dark robes of Joseph, relief painted bright and clear upon his face. Armand bows before me, poised and graceful as ever, and I wonder if last night had been but a dream. I turn my head to the windows, trying to get a glimpse of the gardens, searching for mud, or broken trees, wait, there _has_ been a storm, hasn't there?

I see nothing but full bushes heavy with flowers, white gravel on the alleys, a few servants, and two carriages.

I frown, could it be nothing but the fever? Why is that song still floating in my head? I haven’t remembered it for years.

The lute is there, exactly where the musicians left it yesterday.

Oh, Lord, I'm going mad.

  


“Your Majesty, such pleasure.” He says, _again_, and before I turn to him, a spark of warmth is already alive in my guts.

I nod, suppressing a sigh.

  
With a beaming smile, he moves to the door.

“Shall I announce the excellent news to Her Majesty the Queen?” He asks. “Her anguish must be _torturing _her by now.”

“Hah !” I hear someone croak. “_Oh, surely.”_

Was that my voice? God, my throat is a battlefield.

He freezes in his steps. He watches me for a while, his restrained Protocol face frowned by a flinch of sympathy. He knows. Of course, he knows, he just said what he was supposed to say.

He knows Anne and Mother are drunk on Champagne right now, sending joyful letters to Gaston or Spain, already feasting on my bones. Well, at least while they celebrate my impending death, I don't have to watch them walk in here with those sickening masks of affection plastered upon their faces, thanking the skies above for my recovery. Every second I am spared this insult is a blessing.

“Not a word leaves this room.” I rasp. “Not yet.”

Armand blinks a few times, but after a while he has a quick bow, ordering Pottier to have a solid meal prepared for me, eggs, bread, and cheese _oh, thank you_. I watch him help Citoys pack his medicine away in quiet, efficient moves. My recovery is a personal victory for him, but he barely shows it, wait, was there a storm last night?

Where does this song come from? I haven't remembered it in years.

  
Did I imagine the music he played?

_Did I dream the touch of his hand?_

I hear him and Citoys speak of the remedies I still need to take. Citoys wants five a day; Armand, who knows me best, tries to negotiate three. They're both interrupted by Joseph, grabbing the Cardinal’s sleeve and roughly pulling him towards the window.

“We need to tell him.” The fanatic monk hisses.

“Not now, Joseph.” Richelieu soothes, a quick worried glance for my bed, _now, what is it again? _

“There's no time to lose, Eminence!” Joseph insists, stubborn as a mule.

Armand lifts an imperative finger, but there is one man in France who cannot be impressed by any of Richelieu's authoritarian moves, and it's not even me, it's François du Tremblay.

“There is too much at stake!” He growls, his black, piercing eyes fixed on Richelieu like gaping pits of blame.

Armand bites his lips, exasperation battling fear in his own stare, _oh, enough of that._

“What is it, Cardinal?” I cut in, annoyed. “Did someone die instead of me last night?”

Joseph opens his mouth to speak, but this time a deadly look from Armand keeps him quiet. Richelieu carefully steps close, then, joining his hands on his mouth with the look he has at Council when he has to find the right words pretty fast.

He stops at my wrist’s level, his distant stare fixed on it while his clockwork mind calculates. Just as I frown in impatience, he softly explains.

“Buckingham’s ships and mercenaries reached the Isle of Ré yesterday morning.”

_Bloody English scum, _I want to say, but all I can let out of my damaged throat is an ugly, greasy fit of coughs.

Armand goes for a glass of water, placing it in my hands before I manage to shake my head.

Three weeks ago, as he informed me that the English idiot seemed resolute upon his attack on La Rochelle, I accepted to send two battalions to the small island of Ré, facing the city with five square miles of land and an old fort. Of course, the lunatic in red once more _begged_ me to let him go as though I could afford to send my first Minister to _rot_ upon that barren rock. I refused, even after hours of the most irritating arguing he could impose on me, and when I announced I'd be sending de Toiras instead, I'm pretty sure I read dear Jean's fate darkening into those furious embers of anthracite.

Toiras went to Ré overjoyed, famished for war once more, eager to please as always; but I insisted upon all guns being turned towards England, and not towards the City. My mind hadn't changed about not waging war against my own lands.

Richelieu locked himself in his study for three days after that, without even a reply to my notes.

“Can Toiras hold the fort La Prée?” I croak, nervously fiddling with my untouched glass.

“So far, he has, yes.” Richelieu concedes, resentment almost palpable in the air. “But he hasn't enough men to hold back thirty ships. They will need reinforcements.”

I close my eyes. _Here we go again. _

I sink into my cushions, feeling both their heavy stares on me. To spare me their scrutiny, I only open my eyes again to gaze through the windows, watching the blazing light of July caress the sandstone of the Louvre. Now that I am alive, I’d like a walk down the alley and watch my plane trees in their prime. A day without a decision to make is something I’ll grow old longing for.

Pottier, efficient as always, chooses this moment to step in with my plate of eggs, and I thank God for the timing of this man.

I nod my thanks and take my time. I cut through the bread, dip it in the egg. I eat in small bites, because swallowing is agony to my throat, and because I _sense_ Joseph boiling in frustration from where I sit, and it brings a twisted kind of comfort. I leisurely finish all three eggs before I look up at Richelieu and refuse once more to go where he wants me to.

“We'll send another battalion.” I nod.

And before he opens his mouth to ask what I _know_ he'd be asking, I add,

“Bassompierre will prove worthy of the command.”

The moment I speak the name, he tenses so hard he almost spins around and leaves. I see his jaw clenching, a flash of hurt and wrath passing in his dark eyes, exhaustion making it harder for him to hide under his blank Protocol face.

Did I imagine the gentle touch of his fingers? That thing I cannot name, the unnecessary care?

_Did I dream that long-gone tune?_

Turning back to my plate, I finish, “The English will just be held at a reasonable distance until they starve upon the sea.”

And with that, I expect the conversation to be over.

“They won't, Your Majesty.” The red beast spits.

Fool that I am. _It's never over. _

I glance up again, careful to keep my breathing in check, or I might start coughing. I narrow my eyes at him, and he raises his chin, straightening his back in defiance, _oh don't you dare give me that look_.

“Buckingham’s Spanish mercenaries will be just fine.” He states, his hands clasping each other five inches below his heart. “Since the inhabitants of La Rochelle are providing them with food and ammunition by schooners every day.”

My fork makes a loud ringing sound as it falls upon my plate.

“_What?_” I gasp, feeling a rush of fever grab me by the throat. A suffocating wave of boiling rage washes through me, and I have to close my eyes for a while, dizzy, out of breath. When I open them again, Machiavelli is staring at me with the humble yet resolute eyes he always has when we fight.

_It's never over, is it? He’ll never let go._

“As I reported to you last month,” he very softly says; “the people of La Rochelle demand the destruction of the Fort Louis, the main stronghold of the Crown, on the hill above their walls. Your Majesty was wise enough to refuse repeatedly to weaken his influence in that area of the Kingdom. In the name of that … bone of contention, they gave themselves the right to turn their favours towards the enemies of France.”

No.

Not my own people, my own land. La Rochelle is French, loyal to the Crown.

_“Vive Louis, Le Juste!” _The cobbler said.

Don't I have enough enemies? **_Don't I? _**

  
Isn't it enough to spend my life pushing away people and armies who want me dead?

Never alone, always lonely.

_Hated by my own _-

“**_No!_**”

I send the plate banging against the wall, food splattering on the blue satin wallpaper.

I try to get up, but on the other side of my bed Citoys was watching, and his firm hands pin me back on my cushions with murmurs of reassurance. I struggle for a while, but my pain wakes up, biting my heart in a merciless grip, and I crumble back down, panting.

  


When the blur of agony disperses, and my senses are returned to me, I realise someone is holding my hand. When I look down at it, it is, of course, wrapped in delicate fingers twitching in worry. My eyes follow the red sleeve, the thin shoulder, the slender neck until they find a home in the stare of raging embers.

Armand.

I didn’t dream that song, I know he played for me. 

  
There had been a storm last night.

He picked up the lute, he touched my face, I see it in those eyes.

_C'est la première,_

_C'est la dernière,_

_Que j'ai servie, et servirai._

It wasn’t politics, it wasn’t interest.

It was something else, something I cannot name.

I fear I’ve never known what it felt like before.

If the people of La Rochelle have so gladly betrayed me, I will bring war to them. If there has to be war, the City needs to be besieged by a whole army, not fought by a few battalions, and truth be told, only Armand has this whole design already planned. This siege cannot happen without him, I admit, but he cannot be sent out there alone. I refuse to throw my best chance at the future France deserves to be torn to bits by a cannonball.

I know the demented fool wants to go with all his heart but that's because he doesn’t know, that’s because he cannot understand the nightmare siege war can be. He’d be sick in four days, he'd be dead in a week, and I’d be left here on my own, with a map of Europe only he could comprehend, a King without a plan, a State without a mind.

No, I will not send him alone. If there must be war in La Rochelle, there is only one way to wage it.

My thoughtful silence makes Armand frown, but since my breathing sounds steadier, he eventually lets go of my hand. As he lets out a shuddering breath and steps back towards Joseph, I spare him what’s left of my anger and address the monk instead. My mind is made up, but there's still one detail left unattended.

“I suppose your spies have already reported to you about what Buckingham intends to negotiate for.”

The fierce man clears his throat, scratching his massive grey beard for a while, and for someone who was so desperate for this conversation to begin, he looks very reluctant to continue. He searches for Armand's eyes and speaks only when his dearest Eminence subtly nods his assent.

“I’ve learned from reliable sources that Buckingham would order retreat if Your Majesty granted him his position as Ambassador back, here in the Louvre.”

Ha!

_Of course. _

“So he could spend all the time he wants with, for example, _the Queen_.” I sneer.

Bloody hell, a woman. A full-blow war against England and one of my most beautiful cities, all of this for _a woman_.

I abhor the idea of risking so many lives for something so inconsequential.

  
The fact that this feathery moron actually intends to is sufficient proof, if any more were required, that he has no worth as a soldier.

A woman. What's more, _Anne._

Buckingham could sing serenades under that Spanish Witch's windows for all I care. I hope he likes thick air and icy skin. No, really, he could bloody _be my guest. _

But Armand and I haven’t worked so hard for a powerful, glorious France to let an English brat disrespect me under my own roof. It's not about feelings; I couldn't care less about their feelings. It's about the prestige of the Crown, and the stature of my own name.

The reason is so petty it's heartbreaking, but our purpose gives me no choice. _It's nothing less than what I owe my dear people. _

History needs to be written.

Dreams need to come closer.

“Start the necessary preparations, Cardinal,” I order, and Armand understands my mind, indeed, is made up.

There must be war in La Rochelle, and there is only one way to wage it.

His eyes come alive, like the thunder of last night. A flash of light, a furious might, something to be feared, something to behold. Dark clouds gather, and skies rumble. He takes one step forward, and I read upon his face that the war machine of his mind has already started.

“When our army is ready” I add, “we'll _both_ be marching on La Rochelle.”


	2. October 28th 1627, Fort Louys, Estuary of La Rochelle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings : explicit smut (humping, frottage)

The hooves of our horses send furtive splatters of sand blooming and dying in the air. The beasts are tired, but they are young and fierce enough. Though steam is flowing from their noses, their breaths rumbling with each stride, it seems they could gallop like this to the end of the world.

  
The skies are grey, hiding the sun in a constant twilight, and a nasty breeze pursues us from the very depths of the Ocean. A relentless drizzle has been soaking us in silence, gathering first on our cloaks, then soaking through the fabric, leather, and clothes underneath.

Truth be told, the weather has been a nightmare for a whole week, and it doesn’t seem willing to change.

On our left, as we ride, a short mile of decaying fields separate the ramparts of La Rochelle from our siege walls. As no one had been allowed to plant a seed or harvest a single stem of wheat this year, the land has withered and dried, now offering nothing but wild grass and yellow bramble to the cold October skies.

On our right, the menacing jaws of wood pikes and barricades run in straight lines between the twelve forts recently built around the city. Their dark silhouette, sometimes fifteen yards high, blocks the City’s whole horizon, drawing a merciless circle around La Rochelle both on land and sea alike.

Richelieu brings his horse closer to mine, pointing at the door of Fort Anne, where the builders are raising a double wall. An ancient technique rearranged that Joseph and Richelieu proposed me twenty days ago. As I agreed, the Cardinal ordered three forts to be so equipped.

A first wall, thorny with pikes, repels the foot soldiers. Between the first and second wall, twenty yards of sand allow the gunmen of the forts above to shoot down anyone who passes the barrier. Most of the time, the thick, sturdy second wall isn’t even needed.

We dismount while he gently explains how he had hundreds of oak trees delivered from the forest of Poitevin straight to La Rochelle, all of them used for walls and structures, along with sandstone and schist rock. I only nod distractedly, because I notice the builders are watching us approach in sheer disbelief, and I wonder why. 

_Oh. Is it because I am alone with Richelieu? _

It is true; it might be the first time I’m making my usual tour of the siege force without the Captain of my Guards. Well, there’s no need to worry about my safety. On these dry lands between the siege and the city, an enemy regiment isn’t likely to be found.

Besides, what’s the point in lying? _I do trust Armand._

Last month, as we both arrived from Paris with a whole army behind us, we received Toiras’ desperate call for help. Stuck on the Isle of Ré with two battalions struggling with hunger and sickness, surrounded by Buckingham’s float on that naked island, the brave man wrote that it was only a matter of days before he'd be forced to surrender.

Richelieu didn’t even blink. He had Joseph find thirty-five ships in Sables d’Olonne and bought them here on his own funds. He had them loaded with men, weapons and food in two days with incredible efficiency, his orders precise, his voice unwavering.

When the question of the commander came up, I naturally expected him to propose himself, but against all the odds, with the same cold certitude, he suggested _Gaston_.

“His Highness your brother, I am sure,” he said, “is delighted to see you recovered, and most eager to prove himself loyal to you, above all if, by a _momentary lapse in his vigilance_ while you were ill, he had considered making plans involving your demise.”

It took me a few seconds to understand the way this devilish mind of his was thinking, but truly, it made sense after all. Using Gaston’s fear and remorse to force him back under my authority had worked before.

I approved, and Gaston was sent to Toiras’ rescue the next day. The mountain of a man, seeing French ships approaching on the horizon, shouted courage into his men’s famished, sick hearts, or so I heard, and they launched themselves at their guns and cannons with songs and screams of joy.

Buckingham was pushed miles away, cut from La Rochelle's supplies and left to face sickness and famine in his turn.

Toiras could peacefully set his feet back on the land, replaced on the Isle by Schomberg and two thousand men in the greatest of shape. Hearing exactly how he had been rescued, my dear brave Jean insisted upon meeting the Cardinal, and as soon as he saw his red cloak approaching through the pouring rain soaking the estuary that day, he _ran to embrace him. _Armand winced and flinched, trapped in Toiras’ forceful arms, and I’ll be laughing at the memory of his blushing face until the end of my days.

Still, how he managed to pay for thirty ships, twelve forts, thirteen miles of walls, and forty thousand men with weapons without a livre from the Royal Treasury is a mystery to me.

“How did you get this fortune?” I asked once, covering my suspicion under a thin layer of nonchalance.

He had one of his soft, enigmatic smiles then, and only said, with a vague gesture of his hand, “I fear banks and moneylenders still trust ministers more than they trust the State today. But hopefully, given time, it will change.”

I had set aside the thought that he paid and borrowed everything in his own name, but truly, it was the only explanation that was left.

No matter how strange the thought felt to me, this was _his_ war after all.

His battlefield. _His creation_.

The minute I told him I agreed to march on La Rochelle, he rushed to his study to bring back dozens of plans, maps, models, and checklists, dropping them all in front of me while I was still laying in my sickbed.

The clever beast had everything, _everything _prepared.

From the structure of the forts to the materials of the walls, from bakers to blacksmiths, from horse gear to footwear.

  
It wasn’t the work of a commander or a war strategist.

It was the result of years of meticulous, exalted _obsession_, and the most efficient siege machinery I ever saw.

  
He poured everything he was into it. His over-thinking genius, his ever worried heart. He drew designs for each ditch, each rampart, each cannon base, each framework.

Every role, every part of that magnificent military city he created from scratch was carefully laid down on paper long before the first order was given. He wrote lists of architects, builders, carpenters, all of them among the best France could offer and gave them an insane number of tasks, each one relying on the other in well-oiled harmony.

And the very moment he set foot on La Rochelle, his stare ignited with passion, he put this monstrous machine in motion.

He's been everywhere. He has watched everything. Every detail has to pass through him, every Master bowing to his orders. Through all of this tremendous work, he keeps a closed, focused face, his eyes alive with the calculations of his mind. I know the overuse of his brilliant mind can break him in a matter of weeks in Paris, but in La Rochelle he seems transported by his masterpiece, moved by how easily each element of his intricate system blends and spins in the ensemble, producing the act of war just as an orchestra gives out a symphony.

I heard he wanted to be an officer, long ago, before the black robes of bishophood fell on his shoulders by a twist of fate.

Well, I can but observe, by now, the remarkable Marshal he would inescapably have been.

I am even tempted to feel belittled, sometimes, when I see all faces turn towards him expecting his orders like Holy Words, whether it be soldiers or craftsmen, officers or kitchen boys. I feel pangs of jealousy, surges of doubt. The Courtiers of the Louvre whisper in my head, cunning priest, _filthy liar_, devoured by ambition, _filled with arrogance_.

But there hasn't been a day, there hasn't been one _hour_ where he didn't turn to me and bowed, gesturing at his creation, asking in a low, docile voice,

“Is Your Majesty satisfied with the way His crown is being fought for?”

Every time, every day, I feel my heart swell with glory, and no matter the rain, no matter the sand in my collar or on my face, I feel bathed in sunlight.

Every time, every hour, I feel so blessed I want to touch his hair.

So as I face the builder's surprise, I offer a peaceful smile, yes, I am alone with him, and who else would I need?

_I do trust Armand. _

“Your Majesty, Your Eminence,” one of the workers salutes, pulling off his hat. “The task is almost done.”

Richelieu calls him Perrin, and I have no idea how he remembers so many names. I vaguely recognise the man as one of the foremen he gathered around him on the first day, but that’s all. On Armand’s order, Perrin shows me the woodwork, the planes, the bolting, and the hinges. The man knows his business and is a pleasure to listen to. His strong, able hands grab tools and turn them around to prove their quality, and after a few questions, I find myself testing the accuracy of a sturdy brace. Perrin praises my deftness, and I let out a sharp laugh.

But in the same breath, I remember this is a war we are building, and there is a French city behind my back I have come to scare into obedience.

I lay down the tool with a dark face and nod my gratitude to the builder, stating a few words about my pride for the Craftsmen of France.

While Richelieu steps in to ask for the pikes to be set higher and aim for horses as well as foot soldiers, because _nothing is ever perfect for His Eminence, of course_, I turn around to gaze at La Rochelle, that magnificent city, shining in arrogance despite the awful drizzle, the sullen skies. Her towers might be Protestant, but they are robust and bold. Her high walls might be treacherous, but they are ancient and proud. It hurts me to wage war against her, but the men inside gave me no choice. I cannot let the English rule my land.

History needs to be written.

Our dreams need to come closer.

A rush of angry wind slaps me in the face with wet sand, and I turn my head to spit it on the ground. I am soaked, and yet I haven’t seen one true drop of rain. I am frozen to the bone, my mood darkened by the overcast sky, _God, the ocean coast is torture when winter approaches_.

I have a last look for La Rochelle, and the sturdy sailors living there. They were born on these beaches of salt, they have spent all their winters facing this bitter wind, and I fear, for a second, that it might take more than Richelieu’s walls to lower those brave men’s heads.

“Would you like to return to Fort Louys, Your Majesty?” I hear the Cardinal ask, and I turn to him with a short smile.

“If there is nothing more I need to see, yes.”

Richelieu bows, sends the men back to work, and walks to the horses. As he presents me the reins of my grey Normandy, our gloved hands brush, and I clench my jaws upon that spark of fire again.

I had to stop and stare, I must admit, every morning for five days at least as he came out of that small house of Pont-La-Pierre where he sleeps when he’s not needed around the walls. Since he insisted that I took my quarters in the Castle of Aytré one mile further, more ‘_suitable for my needs_’ as he said, we meet every day on the small road leading to the city.

I tried not to gape that much, but truly, it was the very first time I saw him without robes. May they be black or red; I’ve always seen that silhouette wrapped in ample layers of fabric. As he rode his horse towards me the first morning, I watched in awe his cappa replaced by pieces of armour, boots worn high and sword held low, only a wide red coat thrown around his shoulders as a reminder of his title.

There was nothing to be shocked about, after all. He couldn’t run around a battlefield with those useless yards of red silk tangled around his legs, but still, I didn’t expect the stunning sight he provided.

He looked mighty, his elegance covered by scales of steel. He looked taller, broader, undefeated. He looked, for the first time, a lot more General than _Cardinal_, and that gave the heat in my chest a taste I had never sensed before. I had to force my eyes away from him and watch the blank skies far too often, battling my own yearning for his touch.

I keep trying not to look at him too long, careful to never touch an inch of his skin, but the skies above have been warned, the inevitable is coming upon us.

May it never be said that I gave up without a fight.

  
But this war,_ I was never meant to win._

We haven't been riding for half a mile when we catch sight of a smaller, quicker horse riding straight towards us. I wipe the trickling rain off my eyes with the back of my hands, trying to see the crest on the rider's doublet through the darkening twilight skies. As they seem to hold more red than blue, I turn to Richelieu, two yards behind me.

“Isn't that man one of yours?”

He frowns, pushes his horse past me and nods.

“It is Charpentier.”

Indeed, his secretary, obviously strained by such an unusual exercise, gallops to him and hands him a small note. The Cardinal reads the two lines written there and turns to me with a mildly bothered face.

“Your wishes have been granted, Your Majesty.” He announces. “Treville's Regiment of Royal Musketeers has arrived at Pont-La-Pierre.”

I let out a sharp cry of joy.

The Musketeers was a particular condition of mine. I know Richelieu doesn't like them since they all are sons of the best, oldest families of France, less prone to blindly obey his smallest whim than regular soldiers. The Cardinal hates unpredictable things and unpredictable people even more. That's why, I am sure, he hates Treville, their hot-blooded Captain, far above the rest of them.

But the Musketeers are my creatures, all of them skilled both with swords and pistols, and I refuse to go to war without at least a few of them.

“I suppose you wish to see them” Richelieu adds, ice dripping from his voice.

“Of course, I do.” I shrug and spur my horse forward. “Forget Fort-Louys, we're going to Pont-La-Pierre.”

*** 

The small house of Pont-La-Pierre is barely twenty feet long and ten wide, with two low floors and a roof that will need repair soon enough. It has no more than one bedroom and the smallest of kitchens, but it surprisingly offers a large library, where Richelieu has installed his temporary study, filling all available space with his own books and plans.

As we gallop close, I see my Musketeers putting up camp, Treville's firm voice barking orders in his usual short, unquestionable words. He picks up the sound of my horse quite quickly, and his handsome face lights up with delight as he turns around. The moment my feet hit the ground, all men are already gathered around me, their hats in their hands, _vivats_ on their lips.

I clasp Treville's arm, and he immediately asks how he could be of service.

“Calm down, Captain!” I laugh. “Your men can rest here for tonight. Night is falling, and the siege is holding perfectly tight so far, thanks to the wits and work of the Cardinal.”

With that, I gesture behind me at the tall red figure dismounting from his white mare in silence. I read, perfectly clear upon Treville's honest features, how Richelieu's hatred is equally, _joyfully_ shared.

Treville gives the Cardinal half a bow but obviously wouldn't extend his hand for the world.

“Your Eminence has proved himself efficient once more.” The Captain hisses.

Richelieu, chin held high, pulls off his gloves in irritated moves, and has a bitter look for the circle of men all watching him with the same disdain and suspicion. Now, they're a bit unfair, it's true, but how could such practical men be expected to understand the Red Man's sly and intricate ways?

Treville's sarcasm stays unanswered, at least until the Cardinal turns towards me and bows, stating in a poised, yet tense voice,

“If Your Majesty will excuse me, there is more work waiting for me. Please have the kindness to let me know when the Captain is done _entertaining you_, I will have you escorted back to Aytré without delay.”

I positively _feel_ Treville fuming at my side, his leather gloves creaking as he clenches his fists, _oh for God's sake, Armand, was it necessary?_

I mutter a short acknowledgement, and Richelieu spins around in a whirl of his red coat to stride into the house, painfully followed by a panting, disoriented Charpentier.

Treville wisely lets the insinuation pass, inviting me to share their meal and discuss their duty, but as the circle of Musketeers falls out, I distinctly hear one of them, young d'Artagnan I think, mutter under his breath.

“I don't see how the King can _stand_ that man.”

And really, though those small quarrels may amuse me, I will not bear this kind of thought roaming free among the elite of my men.

“You can stand the Cardinal quite fine, Musketeer,” I address him, loud and clear, “if you're clever enough to understand him.”

D'Artagnan, stricken, freezes in his steps, turning towards me in apprehension. Then upon a furious gesture from Treville, he bows and steps back into the tent without a word, his eyes fixed upon his boots.

The rest of the evening is perfect in all aspects, spent under a canopy of military fabric, around a roaring campfire, enjoying simple food and honest conversation. The drizzle stopped after nightfall, and though God knows the hour is late, I don't want to put an end to one of those rare moments when I can truly share my soldiers’ lives. Treville speaks of battles and future glories, showing off the brand new swords he had forged for his regiment. I hear around us his men's lighter conversations of women or card games, bottles being popped open and songs about the pleasures of France.

Biting in a loaf of plain bread, I think I am truly happy for a while, but as I watch above my head the windows of the house's only bedroom remaining stubbornly alight, I have to admit my bliss is still incomplete.

I am not one of them.

I am not, and will never be, a soldier.

  
I am King of France, my duties immense, my burden relentless.

Never alone, _always lonely._

Stuck with a Red Beast as my only source of warmth and light.

I get up after a while, disguising my unease as weather-watching, and step into the wet grass, breathing a bit of that damp, cold October air.

I stay there unmoving, enjoying for once a small breeze on my face until I notice the silhouette of six or seven horsemen downhill. Those men don't come from the siege forts. They come from the north.

My sword is drawn before I realise it. Treville, who kept his eyes on me for sure, is at my side in an instant. I point at the horsemen.

“Are we expecting anyone, Captain?” I ask.

  
Treville shakes his head.

“Not at this hour in the morning, Your Majesty.” he breathes.

Then, on a quick snap of his fingers, his fifteen men are on their feet, swords and pistols out, and their circle around us is rapidly redrawn. Treville, chivalrous as always, lays a protective hand on my arm.

“Please, step back Your Majesty.” He says, but I only laugh.

“Captain, please.” I huff. “_Seven_ men. It would be a disgrace to cower away.”

The old dog grumbles but complies anyway. We watch the horsemen approach, their stance growing uneasy as they come closer. Their outfits become visible, and they don't make any sense. Most of them are wearing the typical protestant black cloak, but some of them seem to have thrown random pieces and scraps of French army uniforms on their shoulders or their feet. None of them has a complete set, and as they ride towards our light, I can see how terrified they look.

In confused and awkward moves, they come to a halt ten yards away from us. Those are definitely second-grade men. They don't look like soldiers, more like vaguely trained peasants, or the cheapest mercenaries available this side of France. Their horses are clearly farm animals, their faces gaunt, their hair scarce.

They are armed, alright, but none of them looks disposed to fight.

None of them looks healthy; none of them even looks _clean. _

“Who goes there?” a shaking voice emerges from the pack of intruders.

“His Majesty's Royal Musketeers!” Treville shouts, menacing. “Who are you, and what is your business here?”

The horsemen stare at each other, whispering. I hear “Musketeers” once or twice, and a man on the left seems to be laboriously counting us. The one who spoke rides five yards closer, then, and I hear at least ten pistols being armed behind my back.

The man, a sturdy red-haired farmer of thirty at most, narrows his eyes at us, obviously searching for someone he cannot find in our ranks.

At some point, though, his stare falls upon me, and he gasps in sheer terror.

“The King!” He croaks.

He immediately spurs his horse to turn around, his bewildered eyes fixed upon my face.

**_“The King!”_** He shouts.

This time, the six other riders curse aloud, spinning around and running away with anguished, dumbfounded cries.

Treville whistles and four of his men run for their horses, but though inept and cowardly, the intruders are most likely locals, and the Musketeers have little chance of finding them in the mazes of marshland and sand dunes La Rochelle holds around her.

The other soldiers quickly organise a close watch, dispersing around the house to hunt for other foes that could be hiding in the dark. I am left alone with an alarmed, agitated Treville.

“They came for someone.” The Captain speaks, maybe only for himself. “But those men were never meant to fight any serious battle. This was a badly prepared stealth mission. I'd say abduction, or assassination of a single, unguarded man.”

I nod, frowning, my guts twisted by a grip of worry I cannot yet pinpoint.

“The one their leader was searching for among us,” I let out, “and didn't find.”

And turning around to gaze at the second floor's candlelit windows, I breathe, horrified, “The only man that is expected to be found here, alone and unguarded.”

There are at least three different ways to get into this house.

_Bloody Hell, **Armand. **_

“Check the ground floor !” I order Treville. “I'll take the first!”

The Captain nods, and we both rush to the small house's door, swords held tight. While Treville runs through the hall I jump up two flights of stairs, flashes of a thin corpse lying in a pool of blood on hard-tiled floor stopping my heart.

I pass in front of his study's open door, no one.

_God, please, no. _

I run to the other side of the landing, and without thinking, I kick his bedroom door open.

He is there, sitting at a small table near his bed, looking up at me in complete surprise, his hands still holding a quill, both clenched upon his heart. Around him, a mess of teacups and documents, maps and candles, untouched food, medicine.

At his feet, what looks like a stray cat is rolling around upon the plans of a ballista.

“Your Majesty?” He utters, anguished and confused.

I exhale in relief through furious, clenched teeth, and before I give any answer, I turn around and call for Treville from above the stairs. In a minute I see his face peeking up towards me in the hall, and I signal him that all is fine.

-”Guard the doors,” I tell him, as if he wouldn't think of it on his own, “seal the building.”

The Captain nods again, and disappears outside. I go back to Armand's bedroom, then, slam the door shut behind me, and stride to his table. His wide dark eyes fly from my face to my sword and back, and he instinctively pushes his chair two inches away.

I sheathe my sword but still bang my hands firmly upon the letter he was writing.

“We just scared seven men and horses away,” I hiss at his white, shocked face. “Obviously sent here to capture or _kill_ you. If my Musketeers and I hadn’t been here, even those low breeds could have performed their task in absolute tranquillity!”

In an instant, his breathing calms, a brief glint of relief passing upon his face, _what? Did you think I barged in here because I was angry at you? _

  
Well, I _am_ angry at you!

“I’ve told you many times you need a personal guard!” I shout, gesturing at the men outside. “Do you think it clever to risk the ruin of all our plans, all our dreams, whenever seven imbeciles on seven mules decide to slit your bloody_ throat__?_”

He very quietly lays back his quill in his inkpot, and though his hands are shaking dreadfully, he still has the nerve to open his mouth to speak.

“**_Quiet!_**” I growl, and his lips close tight. “Now, you listen to me, you senseless _beast! A_s soon as we return to Paris, you will accept fifty armed men for your safety, and that is **_final!_**”

He lowers his eyes, strands of silver hair falling on his face, and instinctively joins his fingers on his mouth to bite nervously at them. Eventually, he nods, docile, and by the fire _roaring _on my skin, I only realise now I am standing in his bedroom in the middle of the night, watching him shiver and squirm under my furious glare wearing nothing more than his thin nightshirt.

I know my ragged, shattered breath could pose as anger at first, but as endless minutes of silence stretch between us, there is less chance left for lies. One side of his wide collar has slipped past his shoulder, and the fragile line of his collarbone has caught my eyes in a death grip. Without that small red hat, his silver hair falls low upon his neck, grazing white skin that could be torn by a mere breeze. I gulp, watching his pulse drumming there between the delicate tendons of his throat.

The fire in my chest, so loud I could cry, so high I could die.

The flames in my guts, sending sparks of raw need to every inch of my skin.

Armand.

_Only Armand. _

No control, no escape, no lesser sin.

_A war I was never meant to win. _

I knew he was lean, I knew he was pale, but this slender body I can guess under the linen, twisting in distress upon that chair, looks more vulnerable than ever.

Where is the fearsome beast, where is the sly tyrant, devoured by greed, soiled by ambition?

Where is Richelieu, the Minister, the Marshal?

Between those folds of white fabric, I see Armand, and no one else.

_Only Armand. _

His eyes gingerly look up into mine, with such raw devotion that I once more miss one breath or two. I feel fire consuming me, and though I burn so high it hurts, and though my heart is strained and lost, the world is in place, my name has a meaning.

My fears, my worries, my doubts, all lost in furtive hues of silver.

It's about time, perhaps, that I cease to deny how _blissful_ I feel.

How glorious. How kingly.

_Maybe, at last, a little less lonely. _

I slowly straighten my back, my eyes not once leaving his pools of anthracite.

No control, no escape, no lesser sin.

_So be it._

“Get up.” I snap.

He complies, in a low textile whisper. I lift my arms, nodding harshly at my armour and clothes.

“Get this off me,” I order.

His stare widens for a heartbeat or two, his lips parting in hesitation, but he is willing to please more than he is wary of me. He takes five cautious steps, head low, his wide nightshirt falling like a curtain upon his naked feet, until he is close enough for me to feel the warmth he radiates.

  
All my life has been so cold.

Armand, _he always burns._

  
  
His delicate fingers fly one inch above my coat for a while at first, and he looks like a man about to jump off a cliff. He knows there will be no turning back.

No control, no escape.

Armand, _he always knows._

He exhales a short sigh, and, as the fighter he's always been, he lifts the coat off my shoulders.

While he gently lays the wool aside, my fingers dive into his hair, and there is nothing I can do about it. I swear to God I could live and die watching it glow in ever-changing hues of silver thread.

He busies himself with the buckles of my armour, his hands agile and quick despite their trembling. I only accept to leave his hair because he needs help with the lifting and setting of the steel shell on the floor, but the moment it’s done my hand rushes back to the curve of his neck, and his eyes blur for a second.

His skin is smooth, frail as paper, but God, its warmth is a dreadful force. My whole body shudders, calling for it with every bone, every heartbeat.

He tries to unbutton my doublet, focused, but my hand stroking his collarbone seems to make it difficult. He bites his lips, just the way he does at Council when his mind starts racing.

The way he does_. At Council._

God, how could I be deluded by a nightshirt and a docile stance?

Richelieu, the Minister, the Marshal, fool that I am,_ is __right here. _

This man, tomorrow, will be ordering builders, leading soldiers and commanding ships.

This man, tomorrow, will be seen above the walls of Fort Louys, watching the sea with resolved eyes, Joseph at his side sliding advice into his sleeve.

There is no point in lying to myself- this thin, subtle creature unknotting my baldric is the Eminentissime Du Plessis Richelieu.

The tainted priest, soiled with blood.

The nameless sin corrupting my soul.

What was your plan, my Lord? _What wrong did I commit?_

The love of my own kin was all I ever wanted.

_  
_You left me alone with a red beast, that fire inside my heart.

And a war I wasn't meant to win.

_The cunning beast, he damned me. _

“_Please._” He gasps.

I start, blink twice, and stare at my own hand. It has stopped stroking his neck to clench hard around his throat. He’s wheezing for air, twisting in my grip, his eyes already glassy and dimmed.

I let go of him, stepping back, and he coughs in sharp, dry sounds_, God, what am I doing?_

_How could I forget? _

All the glories of my life. The storm and the seawall.

_Our names entwined upon pages of future history._

“Armand.” I breathe.

And I grab his nightshirt to pull him flush against me. _God, his warmth will save my life._ My arms wrap around his lithe frame, and I bury my face in the crook of his neck, devouring the skin there, open-mouthed, famished. He sighs into my ear, my cheek wiping off his tears, and my whole body _howls_.

Fire roars. _So be it. _

_This fight I've always been losing._

  
I hastily kick off my boots, tear my doublet down. I push him until his back hits the wall between his bed and a small buffet. I press him there with my own chest, my hands stroking down his stomach. When my fingers leave his skin for the ties of my own pants, he tenses, his fingers gripping my sleeves in panic.

I fear he could start to speak.

“Not a word,” I grunt, hoarse and panting. “I command you, _not a word_.”

He whimpers, and I pull apart just enough to see his eyes. In the burning embers I read desire, I read terror and that nameless thing I’ve seen before.

Much more than welcoming my hands.

_Toute ma vie_

_Je l'aimerai._

It is – _oh, God._

My heart drumming, my words all lost, I only kiss my apologies to the red marks of my fingers around his throat. He hums softly, the vibration of his voice sending thrills of pleasure through my guts. Soon enough, insane with want, I push my pants down and send them away with a swipe of my foot, and in his widening stare, I see fear and confusion spiralling up fast.

  
He's overwhelmed.

_Well, so am I. _

I have no idea of what to do, does he know more than I?

  
I don't care, _I don't care._

I just want to be closer to his skin, that’s all.

When there is nothing more left on my body than my own shirt, I press myself against him once more, harder, roughly grabbing his cheeks and giving a slow lick to his parted lips. Pliant, he opens wide, and I moan into his mouth, crazed and demented, burning, _burning high_.

_God, how could you let me live for so long without a glimpse of that? _

Never alone, always lonely, between cold sheets and icy skin.

My body silent and my heart asleep.

_Armand, he always burns. _

His hands creep up my sleeves in reverence, and his fingers gently tangle into my hair. His deft tongue slides upon mine, and he softly bites my lower lip, Heavens, is he _good_. I let out a strangled cry, and it makes him arch his hips, oh, _God_.

Fire rushes to my groin, so strong I’m almost blind.

He humbly wraps his hand around mine, guiding it to his mouth, and I almost wail as his pink tongue circles around two of my fingers with agonising precision. He is more than good, he's _amazing_.

  
Does he know more than I, _I don't care. _

I'll just be closer to his skin, that’s all.

I lick my way along his cheek, find a soft spot below his ear, bite much harder than I should. He lets out the keenest of cries, and his hips shift against mine once more, that's all I wanted. I _feel_ him hardening against my thigh. My mind is whirling, drunk on his scent, beyond control. My breath shortens to ragged growls. A few more bites and we're both rock-hard, our helpless minds leaving our bodies to be consumed and moved by our firestorm alone. 

I nail him against the wall, panting into his ear, grab his waist and align our bodies. When I sense his shaft throbbing against mine through our shirts, I slowly thrust forward, rubbing us together. He cries out louder, his arms flying around me, gripping my back with unexpected force. I groan, the pain only heightening my pleasure, and give our friction a slow rhythm, Lord, all those years without a clue.

All my life has been so cold.

_I want more. _

I blindly reach for his nightshirt, grabbing it low, and lifting it above his knees. I let my hands roam up his firm creamy thighs, taking the fabric with me. When he understands what I want to do, he gasps, watching me as if I had lost my mind, _oh, for sure I have. _

For sure, I have.

I lift my own shirt up to my waist, and quickly, harshly perhaps, I thrust forward again, gliding my naked hardness against his own, God, _yes_.

He shudders, screaming in pleasure, and I could spend my days blessed by those cries. His skin of heated silk is a threat to sanity itself. I set a faster rhythm, keeping us aligned by a rough hand on his hip. His eyes lose focus, glistening and distant, and if he keeps on crying out like that, I won't last long.

All those years without a glimpse.

Between cold sheets and icy skin.

_I want more. _

“Hold onto me.” I breathe into his ear, and he instinctively tightens his grip around my back.

He doesn't ask, he doesn't look. He obeys. And when I grab one of his thighs to lift it up to my waist, his body complies, supple and eager. I thrust harder but slower, both our cocks caught between slick skin, sliding against each other in faint wet sounds that his maddening cries almost cover.

I cannot think, I barely breathe, and soon enough, as he finds a way to move along with me, my rhythm collapses, my throat clenches. Fire roars, burning high, burning me.

I burn on the pyre of my own sins, and yet it's him I'm crucifying, crushing him against that wall.

His lower back hits the wood in low thuds, marking my jagged thrusts. The pyre burns, devouring my skin, white light in my eyes, white flame up my spine. My free hand finds his hair again, and this time grips it hard, pulling it brutally downwards, exposing his white, naked throat. He screams, high-pitched, as I sink my teeth there, marking him mine forevermore.

My Red Beast _tamed at last._

Everything he is, every inch of him.

Mine.

_“Yours.” _he moans.

_Armand!_

I cry out in harsh spasms, gripping him hard enough to bruise, spilling warm seed between us both. Seconds after, he follows with a trembling sigh, his nails digging wounds in the flesh of my shoulders. I shudder far too hard for far too long, and I have to cling onto the wall as my pleasure tears me apart, or I fear I may just die.

It lasts for a lifetime, waves of warmth washing through me, G_od, all my life without a clue._

I lean my forehead against the wall, dizzy with bliss and out of breath, and at some point, I slowly let go of him. Unable to stand, he slides onto his knees without a sound, without a hitch, his hands grazing down my back as he falls. I painfully open my eyes to check if he's still conscious, but he seems fine enough. He rests his head against my thigh and catches his breath there, curled against me as if in his natural place.

Well, to my delighted heart, it feels like it is.

I wait until the last shudders of pleasure have passed through my guts, and I can trust my voice a bit more, then I guide his head upwards with a finger under his chin and make him look at me.

Again, in those wide, sated eyes, I see the deepest form of adoration, and I feel like I own the world.

“Find me some warm water,” I tell him with a peaceful smile. “We need to clean ourselves. After that, I want you to rest. I'm staying here tonight.”

His face darkens with objections, but when I raise a warning eyebrow, he just nods, defeated.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he says – _Louis._

_Louis_, my mind corrects of its own volition, and I gasp at how I want him to say the word. _Hah_. As if he would. Who could he love in me, if not his King?

How could a lonely man with a sober mind and simple tastes be of any interest to him?

I help him get up with a bitter sigh. I carefully avoid looking at his nightshirt until he covers it with a dressing gown and goes to the hearth to have a kettle warmed up. The storm of my first time with a man has just finished crushing my senses, I don't think I'm ready for _those stains_ yet.

Wincing in disgust, I quickly put my own clothes back on, everything but the armour, just for the sake of getting back down the stairs to tell Treville I'll be sleeping here. He doesn't look the slightest bit surprised, since it is, in fact, much too late to travel back to Aytré anyways. To my sheer relief, he doesn't even look suspicious neither, and I thank this ancient house's thick stone walls. He just tells me his men could not find any of the intruders but will continue the search by daylight.

I praise the loyalty of his regiment and retire for the night. He bids me goodnight, giving a slight bow.

It is nothing unusual, after all, for a King to share rooms with his closest entourage. In times of war, my father used to sleep in the same room as four of his Marshals, working until they fell off their feet.

As soon as the bedroom door is locked behind me again, I strip to my shirt once more, and Armand, washed clean and wearing another nightshirt, offers me one of his own with a soft smile.

He points at a basin of hot water prepared for me, with what seems to be bloody _herbal soap_. I roll my eyes, but I still kiss his neck as thanks. He purrs into the touch, his fingers brushing my hair for a second.

He has absolutely no reason to look away as I pull off my stained shirt to clean myself, but he still does, and I feel strangely grateful.

His shirt, of course, is a little tight, but it will do. I hang my clothes on a chair to dry before the hearth and slide into bed with a sigh of pure bliss.

I peacefully watch Armand blow out all candles but one, and leave it on my nightstand, but as he lays a pair of coverlets on the floor next to my bed and moves to lie down _there, _I frown in disbelief.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” I rumble.

Kneeling on the floor, he looks up dumbfounded.

“Well, Your Majesty, I...”

_Louis. _I shake my head, silencing my mind with irritation. What, does he think me such a coward to turn my back on what I just did? I know what fire means, I know there can be no escape, no lesser sin, no redemption.

I know the consequences of stepping into a pyre.

_So be it. _

The glories of my life. The storm and the seawall.

My own future, my very dreams, in the embers of anthracite.

_I will not turn back. _

“Don't be an idiot.” I snap. “Get up here.”

With that, he truly freezes. It lasts for a few seconds, where his hands instinctively join upon his heart again, but as I nod towards the bed with an exasperated hiss, he has a start and carefully crawls in, watching me with wet, red-rimmed eyes. He's exhausted. _So am I. _

I don't touch him, not yet. I let him lie down, give him time to relax. I count to ten, breathe in, breathe out, then reach out for his hand and pull him to me. His fingers take hold of my shirt in a tight, yet submissive grip.

  
  
For the first time in my life, I feel warm skin pressed against mine, and I swear I never want to leave this bed.

His weightless, burning body completes mine as if created for my skin.

Well, to my delighted heart, it feels like it is.

I briefly squeeze my eyes upon the memory of those seven rats who tried to take him away from me. I clench my jaw at the thought of the many more that will.

I gather him against my chest and whisper “_sleep_” into his hair. In a second, his whole body loosens, his shoulders dropping into my arms, his breath evening out in a shuddering sigh. Even in this, he simply obeys, and I close my eyes upon a surge of magnificent pride.

All glories of my life will come, I know, from those slender hands clenched around my heart.

My treasure of silver thread.

My Red Beast.

_Armand. _


	3. November 5th,1627, Fort Louys, Estuary of La Rochelle.

This morning, the drizzle came back.

It returned to La Rochelle, carried by icy northern winds, gladly soaking us to the heart once more. The ocean breeze hits us all in the face, again and again, unforgiving and wild, forcing even the bravest to find a way to protect their eyes.

Toiras, standing upon the rampart of Fort Louys next to me, uses his leather hat and large hands to cover his face as he searches the horizon.

  
I don't have to.

It's not the sea I am scrutinising. It's the seawall below my feet.

Stretched between Fort Louys and Fort d'Orléans, Richelieu's seawall draws a merciless line across the estuary of La Rochelle, blocking the way to everything, including the winds.

Forty old ships filled with rocks and debris, sunken in line in front of the City, covered with mortar and huge sandstones, strengthened by ancient oak cross beams. Upon it, a thick pavement of granite, and sixty of the mightiest cannons France could ever forge. All along the wall, a terrifying forest of dark wood pikes, all of them circled in steel, ruling the tide in their implacable reign.

Nearly two miles of insane, brilliant design, standing proud above the waves, crushing their advance, breaking their resolve. Two miles of defiance, two miles of war.

  
  
And in the middle of it all, between two cannons and the dark figure of Joseph, the Eminentissime Cardinal stands tall, his red cloak flapping in angry winds, his steel armour facing the drizzle unperturbed.

I don't see much of him, just a silhouette in red. I cannot guess his face, I only know he's facing the ocean, the black monk at his side pointing at the skyline for him.

But I just cannot help watching.

Because every minute for two hours now, cannonballs have been crashing at his feet, some of them only missing him by a thread.

I am called everywhere else, and I should be looking ahead by now, but the sounds of the creaking seawall bring shivers down my spine, I swear, _every time_.

Buckingham attacked at eight this morning.

Toiras told me his scouts have confirmed the British float is decimated. Hunger and scurvy have been slaughtering his mercenaries for days now, and Buckingham has been forced to throw fifteen dead bodies into the sea every single day.

“He'll be f-forced to sail back to to England soon,” Jean said. “And af-fter his humiliation around the Isle, he's too p-proud to turn away without a proper att-attack.”

So this is a move of despair we are watching. Well, it’s a convincing one. Despite sickness and famine, his thirty ships are masterly sailed, and his cannons have a frightening aim.

We were only half expecting it, most of my officers convinced he'd just give up when his ships turn into graveyards. Only Toiras and Armand remained cautious, keeping men and weapons aligned on the waterfront. As the first sounds of cannon were heard, Richelieu paled, and darted off to his seawall, barely looking back as I remained in Fort Louys with the general staff.

Only our artillery has spoken since.

Toiras yells in joy as one of our cannonballs breaks a gaping hole into the hull of a British ship. Tearing my gaze off the seawall, I pull out my spyglass and take a closer look. Desperate men are jumping in the sea, most of them barely able to swim. Those who can are aiming for the Isle of Ré, where a few protestants might rescue them.

“Sh-should I order them to be pursued, Your M-Majesty?” Toiras asks, but by the nonchalance in his voice, I think he knows my answer already.

“No.” I shrug. “Let them take their chances.”

Deafening crashes resonate against the Fort walls, and we feel our feet trembling a few times. Damn. Repairs will be needed soon enough. Fort Louys must hold, or it'll turn into an unforgivable breach in the siege force. 

My cannons destroy two more ships in a row, but the rest of the float is still getting near. Soon most of it will be too close for the range of Fort Louys’ cannons, but just enough for the seawall‘s. I stride to the rampart overlooking the estuary, narrowing my eyes at Richelieu's artillery. He has the southern half of them firing continuously, harassing the float to its right. Whenever they hit home, and I am genuinely impressed by how often they do, the damage is major.

Why on Earth does he fire only half of them, then? For God's sake, the three lead ships are almost upon his face, _Armand, what are you doing? _

His silhouette remains unmoved, facing the waves under the never-ending rain. Officers around him look agitated, and Buckingham's cannonballs keep pounding the seawall in a hellfire storm. A huge ball of steel destroys an oak pike right in front of him, sending splinters of wood crashing around his legs. Richelieu doesn't seem to take one step back.

_You maniac, I should -_

I bite my lips on the urge to move my own cannons to the estuary and help him out, but it would take too much time, and weaken the seafront.

Toiras calls me. I don't react.

_Armand, you senseless beast, what are you waiting for? _

Jean walks up next to me, his worried gaze following mine. Three English ships are now a hundred yards away from the seawall. To the south side, just below Fort d'Orléans, the wooden pikes are burning, flames blending into salt water with confused clouds of smoke. Drizzle has turned to rain. The winds are growing mad.

“What the _Hell_ is he thinking?” I growl, gesturing at the red figure on the pavements of granite “I should get down there. I should -”

“Oh, the b-brilliant **_bastard_**!” Toiras suddenly shouts, snapping his fingers in excitement.

With a forceful hand on my arm, he diverts my attention to the middle of the float, where Richelieu's cannonballs are spreading so much disaster that the pack of ships is separating in two. Six ships are continuing towards the seawall, twenty others are pushed back to the North, towards the Isle of Ré.

“He's p-pushing them under Schomb-berg's n-nose!” Toiras exults.

Schomberg. _Of course. _

Schomberg is closer to the coast than any Fort around the City and has forty cannons in Fort La Prée.

I don't think Buckingham has seen Gaston's ships unloading those cannons on the Isle after the first attack. His float will be ruined from the rear before he can turn his own artillery around.

_Heavens. _

_Clever beast. _

“Send a coded flag message to Schomberg” I order. “Tell him to load every cannon he has and wait until they're close.”

Jean nods and rushes away.

I stay, looking down at the figurehead of the seawall, smiling in restrained pride, muttering to the nasty winds a short apology for having doubted him again.

This morning, the drizzle came back.

_How little did I care._

I woke up with him fast asleep at my side. The instinctive smile I felt on my lips was crushed before it was born by a rush of sheer panic.

Hell's fire, _abomination_.

My soul's end, my demise.

The memory of his cries, his tear-drenched cheek against my ear, _God, what have I done? _

_Wicked priest. _

My fist clenched tight, my whole body trembled, ready to strike, ready to hurt.

But he shifted in his sleep, his hand grazing my arm, and my anger collapsed in a muddled sigh.

The warmth of him. _His warmth will save my life._

I remembered how I fought, how I denied, how I bargained. I remembered how I refused to give in to that sin until it smothered my very breath. I cursed his name, I beat him to the blood. I tried to avoid his gaze, I turned to a lesser sin.

If only I had been loved by anyone else, dear God, I swear, but you made me so lonely.

There was only one choice left to take.

_Armand._

Instead of an angry fist, only a quieter hand touched his hair after all, and I spoke his name in peacefulness.

He didn't even stir.

I frowned. How strange. I heard he has the lightest of sleep.

But in fact, I also know he has the frailest of healths.

“Armand?” I called again, my hand in his hair a bit firmer, no doubt.

He didn't move. Panic came back, though with a different, deeper, _horrid taste._

“Armand!”

I grabbed his cheek, lifted his face up towards me, giving it a small shake, praying for fate to let me be at peace for _one bloody day. _

He shivered, laboriously opening his eyes, and I realised he was just fine. In all his life of anxious dawns and botched nights, he might never have slept so well, that's all. He looked up at me, his eyes still clouded by slumber, but unlike mine, his first smile suffered no stain, no shadow. It brightened his face like the summer sun, and God, he seemed so much younger then.

It might have been the first time I saw his gaze without those dark circles of red.

Though I might die before I admit it, my heart might have sung a little.

He grabbed my hand, kissed it warmly, and whispered “Your Majesty” against my palm.

_Fire burned_.

Fighting the urge to pin him under my weight all over again, I told him we had minutes left until Treville would kick the doors open to check if we were still alive, and though I expected him to jump on his feet and hand me my clothes, he just blinked, sluggish.

I watched for a while what peace does to a mind that usually never rests. He looked a bit blank, but very docile. I felt I could ask him absolutely anything at this moment, but surprisingly, the feeling alone was enough to satisfy me.

I slid out of bed and got dressed by my own hands. His foggy, yet blissful eyes followed me for a few seconds, and just as I started to wonder what looked better on him, between joy and agony, he shook his head, mumbled something like an apology and got up in a swift move.

He helped me with my armour without a word, buckling it around my doublet with gentle, yet expert hands. He handed me back my sword with such reverence that I had to kiss his neck. He closed his eyes and sighed.

_The fire roared, _but time was short.

I left, silencing the flames in my chest with the weight of my frustration.

“Get dressed. “ I threw over my shoulder. “We ride to Fort Louys in twenty minutes.”

One hour later, the first of Buckingham's cannons yelled.

A thousand cannons are chanting by now, as the English ships are passing in front of Fort La Prée. Buckingham is being destroyed.

I hear a few faint cries for victory shouted already among my general staff, but as long as I don't hear Jean's, I consider the work unfinished.

I keep watching the seawall.

Richelieu has ordered all sixty cannons to shoot by now, and the dragon mouths are spitting fire into the heart of the six unfortunate ships still in approach. All of them are sinking or tilting to the side beyond all hope.

All except one.

One of the lead ships, as tall and solid as I'd wish my own vessels to be, is still advancing towards the seawall, straight at Richelieu and Joseph. The Officers behind them look beyond panicked by now, visibly begging him to move aside. I don't know what he tells them, but he stays right where he is.

_Reckless lunatic, would it hurt you to stand ten yards further?_

He doesn't move. The rain has turned into a torrent, but the only thing it does to him is to make his cloak look heavier in its dances upon the breakneck wind. Joseph seems to be speaking to him, but I can't be sure he's telling him to step back. You never know, with those rabid birds, he could be suggesting he swim straight to the ship for all I know.

The massive warship is fifteen yards away and still sailing, the sound of her cannons replaced by the sharper, nastier bangs of gunshot.

They have _muskets. _

_Armand, for the love of God, run away, don't you bloody know what muskets do to steel armour?_

He doesn't move.

Joseph doesn't speak anymore. I think he's praying.

I vaguely sense Toiras coming back next to me, and gasping at the spectacle.

Richelieu, still as a marble statue wrapped in red silk, facing the tallest ship of Buckingham's force, standing on his seawall as he would for the final Judgement. All around him, musket bullets are raining, exploding in sparks against the granite tiles of the wall. The Officers have called for backup, and twenty foot-soldiers are approaching with French muskets. The battle is more equal, but even if the English bullets are missing their aim, the ship is still rushing full-speed at the seawall.

I don't hear my men chant anymore.

I don't hear the cannons, I don't feel the rain.

I don't care if the Fort trembles, it could crumble under my feet.

I don't watch the sea, I don't search the horizon. I am called elsewhere, how little do I care.

Armand, my curse, my fate, is facing a whole ship alone, with a demented monk and twenty guns.

As the warship's torn sails come flapping above the seawall, all guns turn silent.

As the hull of the monster comes crashing against the dark wood pikes, the officers step back.

As the mighty ark devastates the jaws of Richelieu's wall, he doesn't move.

_He doesn't move._

Pikes are creaking in deafening sounds of thunder, broken in pieces, splinters the size of three men flying in the air. Powder barrels explode inside the ship, fire raging upon the sea.

Pushed by the tide more than his own sails, the ship spins around, offering his flank to the seawall, and the jaws of black oak tear the hull into shreds. A few mercenaries try and jump on the stone tiles, guns and swords in their hands, but those who don't end up impaled upon the broken pikes are killed by French soldiers.

Black smoke rises, fighting the rain in stubborn spite, and only when it dissolves I see the gaping holes in the monster's hull, and how fast she's descending into the dark waters of La Rochelle.

The wood pikes break and burn, but the wall is holding.

Gunshots shriek in fury, but the ship is sinking.

The seawall prevailed.

_Richelieu didn't move. _

Soon enough, a small dozen mercenaries are being taken prisoners, and the magnificent boat has gone. Only a few sharp pieces of masts and beams are rising out of the troubled sea, pointing at the horizon, their own contorted teeth joining the jaws of pikes in a cruel ballet of irony, as the carcass of the mighty ship only strengthens Richelieu's wall in the end.

I realise I have bitten my cheeks bloody. He didn't move.

  
A gigantic shard of the warship's jib is still stuck in between tiles, merely inches from his left foot. He didn't move.

Only as the prisoners leave the seawall under heavy escort does the red figure finally shift, and it is to turn towards Fort Louys. He cannot see me there, I know he can't. I am nothing more than a dark spot against the skies from where he stands, but he still bows, I see it clearly.

_He bows for me, that's all he does. _

“T-this was a sh-show,” Toiras whispers in awe next to me. “This was all f-for a b-bloody _show_! He's counting upon the m-mercenaries left alive to t-tell the tale!”

I look at Jean. He's not laughing. Not at all. He's watching Richelieu retreating towards the land under untainted acclamation, soldiers and officers alike chanting the glories of their homeland under the furious rain.

My breath is short. I don't know why.

“I c-congratulate Your M-Majesty upon his choice of Ministers, really,” Toiras adds, admiration in his voice as genuine as every other of this man's emotions. “This one t-takes the prestige of France very s-s-seriously.”

I just pat his arm as I turn my attention towards the Isle of Ré, hiding my trouble under my most royal stance.

Buckingham's ships are all damaged, most of them practically destroyed. I recognise the one he's in, lingering at the northern end of the Isle, bravely trying to protect a procession of smaller boats leaving Ré. An elegant move, I must admit. There were still a few bags of wheat upon the Island, and he's letting the people of La Rochelle have them before they lose the Isle of Ré for good.

Buckingham is foolish and useless, but he has, I reckon, a sense of chivalry I thought lost ages ago on this side of the world. His lingering around the Isle only allows us to slaughter his float further, and he'll be lucky if he sails home with four vessels, but he stays to his word, and I cannot shrug upon that.

I still order a few of Gaston's ships to keep on harassing them, because I don't want to ruin Richelieu's show of force with leniency.

I stay upon my rampart for two more hours, until everything is done, and Buckingham is nothing more than three specks of darkness upon the horizon.

Only then, I put my spyglass away and nod at Toiras.

“Lift your hat, Marshal of France,” I say.

Immediately, Jean raises his wide feathered hat in the air, bellowing to the dull skies of La Rochelle the unquestionable victory of the Crown.

It can be seen, I am sure, from the Isle to the city itself, and I hear the roar of my whole army echoing from fort to fort, spreading down to the waterfront. The powerful sound rumbles, rising in the air like wild birds do until it seems to cover the estuary under a thick humming layer of joy.

Victory.   
How sweet that song is to me.

Surrounded by my generals, I leave the ramparts for the luxury of Fort Louys' reception room, delighted to see the monumental hearth fire burning high, and leave my drenched cloak in the hands of my valets. I am served warm wine and praise, both in unreasonable amounts, as I watch Officers parade in front of me with a banquet of congratulations. I know they expect me to celebrate, I fear they expect me to speak.

I try to hide my eyes as they uncontrollably search for red again.

I find it, one hour later, as the carnival of ovations quiets down and I'm allowed to wander to the next room, a smaller office for clerks and general staff. I find him, alone, of course, leaning over a heap of papers with his black hawk Joseph perched on his arm.

Two very different things make me clench my teeth as I slam the door shut loud enough to be noticed.

One, the radiant smile Armand has when he sees my face, his armour replaced by his usual red robes, only a thin fur coat on his shoulders as a sign he spent most of his day freezing under the pouring rain.

Two, Joseph's sharp, terrifying eyes upon us both.

He knows.

_God, the damned monk **knows**. _

I freeze in my steps, gripping my tenth cup of warm wine in my hand. Of course, I should have expected it. Joseph always can tell if Richelieu is sick two days before the fever breaks. Joseph signs the Cardinal's letters, speaks his very words, thinks his very thoughts. Joseph is the shadow of his hands, the whispers in the wind.

_That troubled monk always seems to understand everything. _

He must have noticed from the very moment Richelieu arrived at the siege this morning. Those red circles around Armand’s eyes had, in fact, truly disappeared. There were subtle tones of contented peace in his voice, and I find it hard to believe the screaming of our skins couldn't be seen to the whole world whenever we touched by accident.

Of course, _of course_, I should have expected.

I lift my chin up, facing the monk as I could face Buckingham's float all over again, smothering the terror in my guts at the prospect of his judgment, because I swear the man is a _fanatic_. I heard he wrote a whole Iliad to preach for the slaughter of infidels in Turkey. Armand suggested I read it once. I was dead bored before the first chapter.

Still, Joseph's eyes are not something to treat lightly.

He holds my gaze for a while, the black depths of his pupils glowing with intelligence under those thick grey eyebrows, _don't look at me like that old man, I know what sin means._ _I know I damned my soul, I know I lost the battle. _

But tell God, since you are so much closer to Him, that I only hoped for the love of my own kin. Tell God, since you see Him in your sleep, that I didn't give up without a fight.

Armand, oblivious, perhaps, to our silent dialogue, comes to kiss my hand and invites me to the table, talking about a letter to the City, or something like that.

I don't listen. I watch Joseph, awaiting his reaction as a clue of God's very own, later on, when my day will come.

As the obsessive monk suddenly starts striding towards me, my left foot slides back an inch or two on his own volition, _Hell, I know what I have done, don't look at me like that, but he holds my future in his own hands, and God, I have been so lonely. _

But though I almost picture him spitting on the floor in disdain already, he just stops in front of me, and bows. He _bows_, for God's sake, it might be the first time this demented priest finally deigns to.

“God has granted many a blessing to the Crown today.” He simply utters, his all-seeing stare fixed upon mine.

And with that, he slides aside to let me walk to the table, where Armand waits, anxious and eager just like every other day.

I huff a sharp sigh of relief. I have a look at the angry skies above through the high window, could it be? _Could it be God's own plan, this abomination, this mortal sin?_

I shake my head, oh, what's the point. What's done is done. I will not turn back.

I join Richelieu at the table and glance down at the letter he wants me to approve.

“The news of Your Majesty's resounding victory has no doubt already reached the city by now.” He says. “ And I have high hopes the inhabitants of La Rochelle will understand the King will not be defeated. I have prepared a treaty...”

Oh God, Toiras was wrong, it wasn't the mercenaries he was performing for.

“It was for La Rochelle !” I grunt in disbelief.

“...I beg your pardon?”

“This senseless spectacle you put up on that bloody seawall !” I shout, pointing at the sea with a furious hand. “Facing Buckingham's tallest ship alone like David in Elah! It was all to impress La Rochelle into surrendering !”

Again, he blinks, his hands joining on his heart, his eyes filling with that shy, yet unbreakable resolve I know by heart.

“Well, the sooner they see reason, the shorter the siege will be.” He pleads, a saddened stare darting out the window. “La Rochelle is French, and so are her people. I do not wish to soil this war with useless death.”

_Oh. _

I too have a sullen stare for the high towers of the city. Thirty thousand men, women, and children live inside those walls, most of them loyal to the Crown. I don't want this nonsense to last neither, but those sailors were all born here, upon beaches of salt, their winters spent facing the bitter wind.

_What will it take, exactly, to lower those brave men’s heads? _

I read and approve of his treaty. It grants them pretty much everything, except local privileges and financial autonomy. It even grants the City freedom of cult, though by Joseph’s dedicated propaganda the rest of France is persuaded we are on a Crusade for the unity of Faith.

_Hah! The Hell we are._

This is wealth and authority. This is colonies and trade. This is politics and prestige. Nothing holy in all that.

The Reason of State, nothing else.

  
The soil Armand planted our future into.

“Surely they will be reasonable.” The Cardinal whispers with a faint smile as he seals the letter shut. “I am convinced they will accept our terms soon.”

If I growl and spin around, it's only because my skin yells for a touch of his hair. Walking to the door with almost perfect nonchalance, I only hiss for both of them,

“Well, don't feel forced to face a whole float alone with a rolled map and a quill again if they don't.”


	4. November 6th 1627, Castle of Aytré, Estuary of La Rochelle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings : smut (handjob, blowjob)

I didn't want this celebration. I never want any. I loathe crowded halls and distant music, where everybody laughs too loud, buzzing around me to be noticed, expecting me to be the life of the party.

Hah. The life of the party. _Me. _

God, I just want silence around a hearth fire.

I want to be alone and think, or to be with _him_, and not think at all.

From my high seat at the buffet table, I gaze at a tight pack of Lieutenants, five yards to my right, encircling Armand in roaring compliments. Only a few of them, I’m afraid, could be taken as sincere. Indeed, no matter how clever, how brave he can prove to be, to lower men he'll always be Richelieu, cunning and ambitious, dangerous and sly.

Worse, even. The braver, the smarter he will be, the more they'll want him dead. For exactly the same reason why the Cardinal himself is watching Toiras approaching him with wariness. Because he shines a bit too bright.

This is the law of all men of power, everywhere, forever.

_Never alone, always lonely. _

Toiras beams sincerity, though, as he breaks the circle of Lieutenants to opens his arms wide and embrace the Cardinal as a brother. Armand knows Jean considers being a good soldier a higher honour than any Cardinality and this is why, I suppose, he lets this blatant breach of etiquette pass unnoticed. He accepts the drink Toiras pours him, and gives a patient smile to the roaring tale of his bravery upon the seawall, told for the fifth time at least, each time with more stuttering and loud booming sounds.

Every now and then Richelieu's dark eyes glance towards me, _what is it, red beast, what am I supposed to do with those soft stares of yours by now?_

I just avert my eyes in exasperation, watching him lower his head and bite his lips from the corner of my eyes.

_Hell, the room is warm, why am I shivering again? _

I rub my face into my hands. I need a drink.

It’s exactly what I get, as Treville pierces through the crowd with a bottle of excellent Bourgogne. I invite him to my side with a relieved smile and empty the first cup he serves me in one gulp.

Treville’s compliment about our victory is the shortest of them all, and thus my immediate favourite.

“It’s been a good day,” He huffs. 

I chuckle into my wine.

Though it obviously hurts him to the bone, the Captain briefly praises Richelieu’s bravery, and I nod at his commendable efforts. I tell him of the Cardinal’s hopes for La Rochelle’s quick surrender, and I see on his darkening face the confirmation of my own doubts.

“You don’t think it’ll work, Treville?” I ask.

He opens his mouth for something painfully true, no doubt, and I feel a pang of regret as he shuts it the next moment. He seems to be choosing his words, then, and hating every second of it, _hah. I know the feeling._

“Speak plainly, Captain.” I encourage him.

He darts a thankful glance at me as I refill his glass and snap my fingers for another bottle.

Behind the Musketeer’s back, Armand has retreated into a quieter corner to read a few notes Joseph has brought him, signing some, destroying the others. Even here, five hundred miles from the Louvre, every hour of every day devoted to war, his game of smoke and mirrors continues, and I am sure he still knows more about what’s happening in Paris than I do at this time.

“I am certain “Treville cautiously starts, “that His Eminence is aware of exactly what he has started here, and I understand he is not overjoyed at the idea of finishing it. But war is war, Your Majesty, and I fear His Eminence’s hands will end up dirtier than he hopes. ”

I nod with a bitter sigh. The valiant Captain is right.

I have one more bitter look for the distant skyline of the city. Just like Treville, I have seen many a battlefield. I have seen sieges last for more than six months. I have heard of sieges lasting for more than a year. I know what happens to besieged strongholds. I know the sound, I know the smell.

The mass graves, the prayers.

Corpses found with shreds of shoes between their teeth.

Richelieu has never seen such a disaster, but he is clever enough to be terrified of it. He gambled his very life for a chance at La Rochelle's early surrender because he knows where his own insane resolve will lead him if the city resists.

Armand, who _feels everything_ so much, doesn't want to go that far. But all fate needs is _one man_ inside those walls with even half of Richelieu's willpower, and La Rochelle will turn to a graveyard.

Thirty thousand men, women. Children of France. _My own people. _

I grab the second bottle with a flinch.

The orchestra they hired is pleasant enough, though it lacks stamina. They play Dutch concertos and are likely to be Protestants. Do they think me on a crusade against their faith too, as they play that soothing music for me? Do they think, those honest men of France, that I am here as a Catholic King, to crush their freedom to believe?

How wrong, _how wrong. _

Nobody knows of my vision. Nobody knows of my purpose.

Only Armand.

My eyes drift towards the tall red frame in that corner again, meet the ardent stare of anthracite once more, and dart away in a frown, _oh, Hell, I'm tired of this. _

I ask Treville to tell me about his men's improvements in training, because I know that's the only thing he can talk about for hours, and I like the way he speaks. He explains, delighted, how his beloved Musketeers surpass in skill and elegance every regiment of Europe, and he doesn't mind if I finish the second bottle on my own. For that, I am bloody grateful.

I listen to the Captain's rumbling voice, keeping my eyes upon La Rochelle, getting drunker by the minute. The concertos are sweet, elegant and restrained, and slowly, as the wine descends and the laughter rises, the palpable fondness in Treville's speech ends up lifting my spirits after all. He makes a subtle joke about a cadet from Colmar he never could pronounce the name of, calling him “choucroute” as the typical meal of his hometown, and I almost snort.

General Marillac asks the orchestra for popular songs at some point, and the officers start to sing, raising their cups high to the glories of France. This is the way most celebrations end in times of war, the company lacking women to keep the mood soft and gallant.

I smile at my soldiers, comfortably blurred by pride and good wine.

They all sing their hearts out, stomping their foot under the table, a few of them trying a short dance. When Schomberg, who had left the Isle for this night to receive my official gratitude, asks for a toast in my name, all faces turn to me, and all voices roar as one,

_ “Louis, le Juste!”_

I nod at them with a quiet smile.

Victory.

_How sweet is that song to me. _

Tonight, for all of them, in this small castle above the marshes of La Rochelle, France is magnificent, fierce, unstoppable.

Would they be so pleased if they knew to who they owe that grandeur?

The treaties, the decrees, the edicts.

The Reason of State, the map of Europe.

Would they be so thrilled, if they knew only a part of it is my doing?

Most of the work, if not all of it, comes from the man they hate the most.

That spot of red in the corner of my eyes.

_He risked his life for France today, and I barely looked at him. _

I keep forgetting, don’t I? _I keep forgetting._

I search for Armand again, _one last time_, I swear to myself, because I don't intend to look away anymore.

But what I find instead, is the gaze of De Toiras.

I don't think dear Jean can read people that well, and I fear I'm not the most accessible of men. Yet, he surely recognised a hint of loneliness upon my face as I was looking around the room, and once again, his eyes change _that way_ for me.

He's obviously as drunk as I am, his cheeks reddened and his stance swaying, but there isn't a shred of hesitation in his smile when he bows slightly, his gaze inviting.

My breath hitches, _oh, Jean, I wish I could. If only you knew._

I am not blind to the ways of the world. Soldiers take whatever comfort they can find. I know it will happen tonight, most likely in this castle, or in the camp around it. The music, the wine, the victory.

Dear Jean, how I wish I could accept your beckoning. Your sin, I could ignore.

_Your warmth I could forgive. _

But I know, by now, I know there is no fight, no bargain against fate.

No escape, no control.

I know, by now I know, my future lies between pale and slender hands.

  
Armand. _Only Armand. _

I still get up and walk to De Toiras, feeling despicable as his honest face lightens up in excitement, but instead of following him outside I clasp his hand, grab his arm and give him a rough, warm shake, _oh, I wish you'd understand_.

Your comfort I could forgive, but I am doomed, if only you knew, to a much darker, filthier sin.

The raging flames. Hell's own fire.

  
Delicate hands around my heart.

I lean towards him, just slightly, and whisper for him alone,

“It is agreeable to know how far I can count on you, _Monsieur_.”

I positively feel him shudder at the word, and his grip around my hand twitches in emotion.

“Please do believe” I add, “that had I been any other man, I would have answered to your kindness.”

With that, I release him, and he understands. I don't know how much exactly, but it doesn't matter. His open face crumbles a little, and he lets go of me with a low, scattered question,

“Had Y-Your Majesty been any d-d-different, would both of us be s-standing here?”

I don't answer. I just smile, nod my thanks, and walk to the door.

Before I leave, I turn around, and finally find _him_, my monster in silk, leaning against the mantelpiece on the other side of the room, watching Toiras with a terrifying promise in his dark eyes, _oh stop that, you lunatic, can't you see I just turned him down? _

I know it's you. It's only you.

For better or worse, your hands around my heart, your writing upon my dreams.

Eventually, because it always does, his stare slides back to me, and he reads my summoning as clear as day.

I see him jump in surprise, his fingertips passing on his mouth. But after a while, he subtly nods. I'm not sure his head even moved. I just know he nodded.

I know every twitch of him by now.

I leave the room, nearly stumbling on my own feet. I remember I'm drunk and laugh like an idiot. I hiss a pair of valets away and walk to my bedroom alone.

Once there, I pull every item of clothing off my skin except my shirt and sink into a wide armchair next to my bed. I try to rub the wine's blur from my eyes, fail, and laugh again. I slowly realise I don't hear the music anymore. I don't hear anything, only the wind against my windows, and that hearth fire I longed for. I rest my head against the armchair, focus on the ceiling of wood panelling and take a deep breath.

_Silence, at last. _

I could enjoy being alone, but I'm not sure I want to think.

He risked his life for me today, and I do want to touch his hair.

I lazily turn my head towards the door.

He will come. I just know. 

There's more wine on my nightstand.

*** 

Half a bottle later I start, _did I doze off so fast?_

I dazedly look at the door, but it hasn't moved. The clicking sound I heard came from the wall right next to me, where a wooden panel I thought merely decorative just slid open.

I crane my head to watch, dumbfounded, as Richelieu steps in and closes a secret door I wasn't even aware of.

“Where the hell does _that_ lead to?” I grunt, pointing at the passage with a slightly shaking bottle.

“The chapel below.” He says, gesturing at the floor.

“And when exactly did you intend to inform me of the secret passage leading straight to my bedroom?” I hiss.

“Whenever you'd ask.”

I throw my hands in the air, slumping back in my armchair. I look around for a glass, did I even have a glass in the first place? I shrug and drink straight from the bottle.

He comes to stand two respectable yards away from me, staring through the windows in impeccably poised stance. I am sitting half-naked in that armchair next to him, and he very politely looks at the _scenery_. I want to mock him, I want to sneer, but no matter how I hate it, I am silenced by how good his mere presence feels. I enjoy it for a while, just the two of us in peaceful silence. I don't think I can do that with anyone else, and it makes me laugh at the absurdity of my life.

He turns to me then, looking at my bottle with concern, _oh don't you dare nurse me, I picked you up from my own floor often enough. _

“I'm not _that drunk_, Cardinal.” I spit, glaring at him with narrowed eyes.

He bites his lips, whispers an apology, and bows gently. _Now that's more like it._

I take another gulp, eyeing him from head to toe. Those robes need to go. I can't stand that red, not here, not now. I don't want that silk to whisper about sin. I know what sin means. I damned my soul last night. I damned my soul thirteen years ago.

I snap my fingers at him.

“Undress.”

He gasps, darting a look at himself, then around the room. He pales in a heartbeat, his breath shortening, and he looks like he could step back towards the passage, _oh no, you won't. _

“Armand,” I call.

His panicked eyes return on mine. I let out a short smile, then, as a peace offering, and try to put a little more benevolence in my next words.

“Don't make me ask twice.”

His thin lips part slightly as he exhales some of his tension, and upon another nod, he starts unbuttoning his robes in graceful moves. His stare remains on me, though not exactly into my eyes. Instead, around my hair, I'd say. I'm fine with that. If I push him too hard, he might just break down and cry again.

  
He opens the collar, descends to his waist, and at this point, he just lets the whole thing slide down to the floor. I had hoped for the red to disappear, but underneath the first set of robes, I only find another. I never noticed how many _layers _those bloody things had. Well, evidently at least three. I sigh. His lips twitch, was it a smile?

He undoes the second layer, and this time I catch a glimpse of milky skin beneath his shirt. I lick my lips instinctively, taking a large gulp of wine. The second set of robes falls like a curtain, and he elegantly steps out of the heap of red fabric to stand closer to me. I inhale sharply.

The last layer is a long, thin chemise, something like yesterday's nightshirt, only lighter. I cannot see, but I can guess _everything_. His fragile shoulders, his narrow waist. The way his hipbones brush against the fabric. He unties the front, and I devour the smooth skin of his chest with hungry eyes.

He winces as he pulls off his small red hat and drops it on the heap of silk behind him. Strands of silver fall free around his slender neck. I am famished for his pale skin for sure, but the sight of his dishevelled hair steals my breath every time, and I am sure it always will. I watch silver thread dance in the firelight, fire growling in my guts, burning high, _burning bright. _

My gaze follows his neck and arms to his thin wrists. I enjoy the sight of his delicate, yet powerful hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, my gulps distracted as I finish the bottle of wine.

It takes a while for me to realise he has stopped moving.

I glance at his face. His eyes are down, anguished, his mouth tense and whitening, Lord, _what is it now? _The very man who didn't so much as flinch as a monstrous ship rushed straight at him now suddenly looks like he’s searching for his courage.

Oh.

As he starts to lift his chemise, it hits me.  
_God, it's true. _I told him to undress.

He thinks I meant _everything_.

I almost open my mouth to tell him I just wanted the red robes gone, but with a determined sigh of his, the shirt is raised above his pale thighs, and my words die into my throat.

_Heavens._

The thin white fabric is pulled above his head and dropped at his feet, and though it smothers me with shame, I have to admit he's braver than I am because as he stands there naked in candlelight, my eyes remain petrified around his ankles for a while.

I have no idea why I cannot dare to look because I sure _felt everything_ close enough yesterday night, but he's a man for God's sake, and it's the first -

Calm down. Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. It is Armand. _Only Armand._

  
I made a decision. I will not turn back.

My stare slowly ascends upon his body, and I sigh in raw wonder. He's beautiful.

Slender and yet lively just as I imagined. White fragile skin wrapped around solid bones, his waist almost feminine, but his legs firm and bold. Hairless, except for a fine trail of darker silver from his navel to his groin, and truly, I thought I'd be embarrassed, but he looks like me, nothing more.

_Nothing less neither – _my mind provides with a spark of sinful flame.

I hear his breath wheezing, and I look up at his face. _God, I should say something_.

His glassy eyes are fixed upon the floor, his chest heaving with scattered huffs. He clasps his hands together upon his mouth, and I flinch in sympathy as he bites on his thumb so hard his whole body shudders.

He didn't see me look at him, all he’s hearing is my silence. _He thinks I don't like what I’m seeing. _

“Armand,” I call again, and the raspy moan in my voice betrays already more than I could say.

He gingerly stares back at me, and as words would seem unreliable, I just lean back in my armchair and slightly part my legs. I'm still wearing my shirt, but it doesn’t do much to cover my raging hardness underneath.

His wide, tearful eyes search through mine for a second, dart downwards, and back up. _He understands_.

He releases his bite on his thumb, a thick dash of blood sliding down his hand, _oh dear God._

Leaning forward, my elbows on the armrests, I nod at the floor in front of me, and though the command is firm, my voice is still hoarse enough to be the truest of praises.

“Kneel.”

He obeys immediately, falling on his knees without a sound, and as soon as his face is within reach, I grab it tight to devour his mouth. I push his lips open, delve into him with the thirst of a dying man, and I remember I wanted to touch his hair. I tangle my fingers in the silver thread, moaning at the touch, and his hands come to grip my thighs with subtle, yet desperate force.

  
It lasts for long enough, and I could make it last for hours, but at some point, he begins to whimper, and I pull apart to watch him. His anguish seems tamed for now, and need is slowly colouring his cheeks, darkening his wide eyes. I feel his hands twitch on my legs, inching forward, a silent plea in his stare.

He’s not half as distressed as yesterday. Yesterday was a surprise to him. Today, he came prepared. He has a plan. He has a clear, conscious intent.

_God, he wants to..._

“Touch me,” I order.

He nods, with the smile he has when I accept a suggestion he knows to be good, but instead of rushing between my legs he lifts his undamaged hand to his mouth and licks his fingers in slow circles again, the sight alone making me dizzy with want.

Then, cautiously, he slides a hand under my shirt, and I feel warm, deft fingers close around my cock. I groan at the first touch, but when he starts stroking, I just scream, and the bottle I forgot I was holding smashes on the floor with a forlorn sound.

The pressure of his hand is maddening, almost too much, definitely not enough, and I can barely keep my vision clear as I watch his focused eyes fixed on my face. He pumps in firm, deep moves, his thumb making quick circles around the tip every now and then, and soon I am panting like a man possessed. My legs twitch in pleasure, God, the sly bastard, he _does_ know more than I.

A lot, a _whole lot more._

His other hand gently joins the first, slips somewhere _under_, and I have no idea what he is doing, but the sensation is so fierce I fear I might just black out.

I moan, crazed and shuddering, and though his eyes lose their focus, his fingers don't stutter once. He rubs, strokes and caresses, keeping a steady rhythm with just a finger or a full fist. Before long, a white light of pleasure threatens to wash over me, and I have to grab his wrists to stop him.

I stare, amazed, trying to catch my breath, and as I push his hands away from my shaft, the wet trails they leave on my thighs driving me _insane with lust_.

His own breath is short and ragged, low whimpering lost in his throat, but the clever beast still knows what he's doing. His devoted eyes firmly fixed on mine, he only darts out his pink, delicate tongue and _licks his lips_ like no devil could.

Oh, bloody Hell, this is not all you’ve planned, is it? 

Of course not, you have much more in mind.

_No one could ever take you by surprise twice. _

His wet mouth barely open, he gently drops his shoulders and makes the slightest bow forward, his eyes upon mine very clear about exactly what he proposes.

Oh, God, _Armand._

I hold on to whatever composure I have left, as I let one finger of mine brush his jawline. How gorgeous he is, my monster, my red beast, kneeling between my legs, willing to pleasure me.

His brilliant mind at my disposal. His agile hands at my command.

_His subtle tongue..._

I let out a throaty moan.

“You really are eager to serve, aren't you?” I pant.

He doesn't reply. His thick eyelashes just drop for a second, and he moistens his lips again, _oh God if he does that one more time I swear I'll come untouched_. I let myself fall back into my armchair, my back hitting the furniture in a dull thump, watching him in disbelief and in fact, a bit of pride.

I nod at myself, one hand curling into his silver hair.

“Serve me, then.”

He gently nods, lifts up my shirt, lowers his head and swallows me whole. I throw my head back, cry out to the ceiling, grip his hair tight and call out his name. God, this slick heat is _killing me_. He slowly moves his head, and I feel his tongue curling around me inside his mouth. My hips jolt upwards, almost choking him, and he begs me to stay put with a shaking hand on my stomach. I press a fist against my own mouth because my moans are getting dangerously high, and Aytré is more crowded than Pont-la-Pierre.

I can barely control the shudders of my legs, my feet scraping the floor in despair.

  
I didn't know such pleasure even existed.

_So many years without a clue. _

I burn to a crisp, I burn to madness. I burn on the pyre of my own sins, doomed to the filthiest of them all. I burn, and yet I scream in a frenzy, my cock twitching inside his mouth.

I look down, demented, to watch him quicken his rhythm, eyes closed, letting my slick shaft thrust between his reddened lips, _God, yes!_

_All my life without a glimpse. _

I grab his hair too tight, I move my legs too hard, I don't care. I cry out, again and again, hoarse and stunned by all those things I never knew. Far too soon, I feel the flames whitening my mind again, and I suppose I should warn him, but all I can do is breathe his name.

“Armand. _Armand – **Ah**! _”

He freezes. It's me who squirms and shudders, screaming against my own hand, spending myself into his mouth in endless, violent thrusts.

He takes it all without a sound.

Only after a long while he blinks his eyes open, and slowly lets go of me. Through a blur of ecstasy, I see him wince as he swallows, and I stare in wonder at how far this man has just gone. One elbow on the armrest, leaning my head in my own hand, I fight for my breath for a laborious minute, my hazy eyes fixed on a detail of his shoulder. Then, without thinking, I dreamily let my other hand wipe my own seed off the corner of his mouth and, curious no doubt, I pass my own fingers on my tongue for a taste, _ah, indeed, not very good._

But the desperate, hungry whimper he lets out at the sight of it snaps me from my blissful delirium to realise the _state_ he's in.

He's still kneeling on the floor, his imploring eyes raised up to me, shaking in need, hard and ravenous. Now, I can't leave him like that. A King, after all, should reward every act of bravery.

I lean down towards him at first and gently kiss his hair.

“Very good,” I whisper against his forehead.

At that, he suddenly cries out in what seems to be raw pleasure, his hands flying to grab my shirt, keeping me close to him with surprising strength, _oh now, that is intense_. _Could it be just what I said?_

“You served me perfectly, Armand.” I purr as an experiment.

God, the _cry_ he has, burying his face into my chest, shuddering in bliss. I chuckle in stunned wonder, so _that's_ what makes him tick.

I didn't need to cut him open with my sword after all. 

I softly stroke his back, nuzzling his hair for a while. My red beast tamed at last. The monster in silk, _mine forevermore._

“Get on the bed.” I breathe.

It takes a few seconds for him to untangle his hands from my shirt, but soon enough he pulls away and gracefully slides on my covers, gathering his long legs against him.

Wincing at my protesting bones, I follow him, careful not to step on the shards of my broken bottle.

I come to sit behind him, _now, I only have to do it as I would to myself, right?_ It doesn’t happen as often as anyone could imagine, but I'll manage. I grab his waist, pull him towards me until his back is pressed against my chest. He's warm, _God's he's warm. _

All my life, between thick air and icy skin.

_Armand, he always burns. _

I circle a firm arm around his waist, nibbling at this heavenly spot below his ear. He moans, keen and trembling, _alright, don't think, just move. _Breathe in, breathe out, _focus. _

It's Armand._ Only Armand. _

I carefully close my hand around his cock, feeling his wet skin burn there, and start stroking, just as I would myself. He doesn't feel that different; a bit thinner, that's all. He's soft. He's clean. Always has been. I sense his pleasure seeping through his skin, directly upon mine. His legs twitch in their turn, I'm wrapped around him. It feels good.

Amazing.  
It feels _amazing. _

He cries out, one of his hands blindly reaching for my hair, the other gripping my arm around him. His hips thrust into my hand, and I allow it because it helps. I'm too distracted to be good.

I kiss and bite his shoulder, drunk on his cries more than any wine on Earth. I stroke steadily, devouring every flinch of his skin, and he moans, _God, he moans. _He won’t be long.

“You please me,” I whisper, smirking in satisfaction as he shudders and wails.

Praise really _does_ make him feel good. _Interesting._

His head falls back on my shoulder, and in between cries I hear broken words as I stroke harder, spreading his own fluid on his length with my thumb.

  
I hear pleas, I hear praise, my own shaft already twitching at the sheer devotion in his voice, _God, we could go on all night. _

All those years, I didn't know. Between thick air and icy skin.

I feel him close, I recognise the throbbing, and I let him thrust into my fist as he needs, I know he won’t be long. Lord, he's beautiful like his, pliant, feverish, and _loud_.

My Red Beast, my Armand.

  
“Your Majesty” I hear him cry.

_Louis_\- my mind craves for.

But who would he make love to, if not his King?

Upon a last thrust, he freezes, screams, and comes in my arms, shaken by pleasure for a long, _long time. _I listen, and I feel, I feed, and I drink. When did I close my eyes? It doesn't matter. My hand is drenched in semen, I don't mind. It's Armand.

Only Armand.

I hold him until I'm not worried he might pass out anymore, then I kiss his cheek and urge him off me.

He takes a few deep breaths, blinking, and unclenches his fingers out of my hair with an apologetic wince. I just smile and nod at a basin near the hearth. He inches away and crawls off the bed, his elegance somewhat damaged – _ah, so it **can** be done after all. _

He comes back with a wet cloth and meticulously starts cleaning my hand and thighs. I let him work with a fond smile I'm not sure I can control. Then he disappears to the basin to wash himself, and returns to the bed, picking up his shirt on the way.

I roll my eyes as he still feels the need to ask permission to lie down on the bed, though I know I'd be furious if he had done any different. I grab my own sheets and pull them open for him with a short hiss about his foolishness. Throwing on his shirt, he obediently slides into them, grips a corner of my sleeve, and lets his whole body go limp.

He's at peace. We both are.

I gather him closer; refusing to be deprived of his warmth yet. I barely can keep my eyes open. As Treville said, _it's been a good day. _

Before sleep claims me at last, I still have a last look for the dark outline of La Rochelle through my windows. I remember flashes of a red figure upon the mighty seawall, unmoving in front of the monster boat. Many a city would indeed yield, after such a show of force.

But La Rochelle is a fortress, her people born on beaches of salt.

“Did you send them the treaty?” I ask.

“I did, Your Majesty.” He answers immediately, his voice much clearer than mine. “I hope for their surrender tomorrow morning.”

_Oh, so do I, my Armand, so do I._

_   
_I'm not sure I am ready to witness how letting them all die would _break you in two. _


	5. January 17th 1628, Fort Louys, Estuary of La Rochelle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings : smut (frottage), rough manhandling

Surrender never came.

A single rider wearing the white banner of messengers was let out of the City the very next day. He went straight to Fort Louys, asked for Richelieu in person, and gave him a sealed envelope.

I saw with my own eyes Armand nervously tearing the paper open, knowing he was clever enough to guess a single messenger couldn’t mean good news.

Inside the envelope, was the treaty he had sent to La Rochelle the day before.

Meticulously torn into _sixteen shreds_, without a further word of explanation.

Joseph, at his side as always, growled in fury like a wounded bear.

Armand, _of course_, remained very quiet, but the twitching of his jaw told me how painful the blow had been. With a controlled sneer, he asked the messenger if La Rochelle had any intention of pursuing the negotiations, but the rider was nothing more than a farm boy of fifteen at best, who hadn't been told anything. With a respectful flinch of apology, he only said he had no place at the new Mayor's council.

Richelieu froze, growing whiter by the second.

“The _new_ mayor?” he hissed.

The boy nodded and told him how the City Council had elected a new mayor the night before. By the low curse escaping Joseph’s lips, that wasn’t expected _at all_.

“His name?” The Red Beast snapped.

“Jean Guiton.” The messenger stammered.

Richelieu immediately turned towards his black hawk, a single question in his icy stare. Joseph's eyes were wide with dismay, and I don't think I've ever heard his voice trembling so much as he whispered,

“I know that name. It’s bad. The wealthiest ship-owner of the City, hot-blooded, more determined than educated. A radical Protestant. He’ll make it personal.”

_A single man, inside those walls, with even half of Richelieu’s willpower._

I sighed, nauseated by the smell of bad signs, and I knew Armand felt just the same. His shoulders dropped, and he closed his eyes for a while, a flash of despair passing across his face before he turned back to the farm boy.

“Is the new Mayor at least aware that his predecessor had started negotiations with the Crown?” He asked.

The messenger only spread his arms in helplessness.

“I know nothing, Monsieur.” He pleaded.

Richelieu abruptly slammed the shreds of his treaty upon the nearest table, rested both his hands upon them, and stared at the void between the papers and the boy’s feet in frozen silence.

The messenger just stood trembling in fear, his heels touching and his hat in his hands, without a clue of what to do with himself. After a while, I took pity and opened my mouth to dismiss him, but before I uttered the first word, the boy raised his head towards me and bravely spoke first.

“My father served in Montpellier, Your Highness.” He muttered. “General Bassompierre gave him a portrait of Your Highness as a reward. It’s still his most treasured possession.”

I clenched my teeth and only nodded, unable to find a proper answer to _that_. The youngster’s grip upon his hat twisted and turned while he added in a lower voice, inching closer to me as in confession.

“My father tried to speak to Monsieur Guiton, telling him you were a good King, and that he should consider your terms. But Monsieur Guiton just said he’d stab anyone who speaks of surrender right in the heart. He even pulled out his own knife to pierce his desk with it, my father told me. Monsieur Guiton says the Cardinal is a demon from Hell, and only wants to destroy our faith. He says this war is holy, and God is on our side. ”

I cringed, my eyes darting to Richelieu standing there at his table with both hands on his torn treaty. Resigned sadness knitting his brow, silent agony narrowing his lips, he looked miserable no doubt, but he didn't look the least bit _surprised._

_How could he be? _

To raise money and support for his war on La Rochelle, he had indeed ordered Joseph and his hired journalists to flood the country with blatant propaganda about the unity of faith under the patronage of the Virgin Mary, in the name of the Very Christian King. Protestants were shouted down as the dreadful enemy within merciless essays, pamphlets, and news, while the True Faith was glorified in self-assured lyricism.

Lured by the illusion of Holy war, the whole Kingdom was expected to take our side in the battle for La Rochelle.

_Oh, it worked._ It worked alright, enough for him to finance that monstrous war machine of his, and for every Catholic of France to naturally accept the absurdity of war against our own land.

His trick worked so well, his spell so cleverly cast, that the Mayor of La Rochelle himself was to be found among the people Richelieu fooled.

  
The clever beast made this look like a holy war to everyone. _Well, from this moment on, in fact, it was. _

_A single man stood then, inside those walls, with nothing more than half of Richelieu’s willpower._

I felt my guts twist with the _nightmare_ this siege was going to become.

I know the smell, I know the sound.

The stench of the plague, the rattle of bones.

Corpses so dry they don't even rot. They just lie right where they died, staring at you through empty eyes.

I am not the most sensitive of men, and yet I can count on only one hand the weeks that pass without a nightmare from siege war.

_'So, Armand_' I thought, _'who **feels** so much…’_

I shook the horror off my mind, focusing on the young man in front of me.

“Your father is a good man,” I spoke, my voice much less steady than I wished, “and I will remember his loyalty.”

The boy, overjoyed, tried a pitiful bow. It looked like he wasn’t hoping for anything more. I forced to silence the surge of compassion washing over my heart before I added, gesturing at a bloodless Armand biting his lips on my side,

“The Cardinal is no demon. Whatever he does, he does for the Crown, and under my own command. Your Mayor would be wise to understand it, for it would pain me deeply to see this war last one day longer than it should.”

With that, I dismissed the lad, because I couldn’t bear to look into his bright, innocent eyes one more minute. Upon another wretched bow, he walked out.

Just before he closed the door, Armand’s strained, tortured voice made us all jump in surprise, stopping the messenger on his way out.

“For your service to France,” he gently breathed, “you might be authorised to remain behind our siege line after you deliver the King’s response.”

The boy’s eyes widened in blissful shock for a while, only to darken just as fast, and he lowered his head with a quick shrug.

“Monseigneur is indeed merciful,” he mumbled, regret and bitterness drowning his soft features, “but, see, I’ve got my family in there. My parents, my sisters, and my fiancée Françoise. She’s having a baby this next summer, you know.”

Richelieu closed his eyes again, and for a second, I thought he was about to cry. But he just growled and spun around, sending the boy out of his sight with a short wave of his hand.

As the door closed, he let himself fall into a chair near the windows, looking at the City below in raw misery. Joseph started speaking, but Armand hissed like a cat, shrinking away from the sound. He didn't need, I supposed, anyone to tell him what to do. He knew. He foresaw, just as well as I, the grim skies and barren lands, the misery and loss.

Corpses so dry they never rot.

Children mummified in their own bedsheets.

_'I fear His Eminence's hands will end up dirtier than he hopes.'_

My brave Captain, if only you knew how letting them die will break him in two.

How bright, how warm had been that morning though, after the celebration in Aytré, as I woke up next to him for the second time in a row.

True, the first cloud of panic still darkened my eyes the moment I felt his thin frame against mine. His skin might have been soft, his hands pale and weightless, but a few things that couldn’t be ignored made his presence inescapably male. _Damnation,_ the raincloud hissed. _The filthiest of sins_.

_Where is the Christian King?_ The storm threatened, _what has he turned into?_

But it didn’t last.

That morning, it didn’t last. 

I woke him up with a gentle shake, he opened his bright eyes, and my skies cleared in a heartbeat. I moved to sit up but immediately was forced back on my pillows by a blinding surge of headache.

I groaned, and he laughed softly, murmuring something about the broken bottle at the feet of my bed.

I gave him a menacing look.

He lowered his eyes.

He cautiously urged me to stay still, arguing that no one would expect either of us to appear before noon, as the celebration of the day before had no doubt made many _casualties_. I chuckled at his choice of words, and I swear I don’t do that often. Appeased, I let him fetch me fresh water, my pain mellowed by the sight of him walking around my room in that wispy white shirt.

His silver hair in the shallow morning light.

  
The shadows of his eyelashes upon his hollow cheeks.

The milky skin of his neck as he sat back next to me.

It was about time I ceased to deny how peaceful I felt.

The world had fallen into place, my name had a meaning.

  
_I was, at last, a little less lonely. _

Emptying the cup of clear water he handed me, I stroked his thigh in confidence, a lot more possessive, no doubt, than I had ever thought myself to be. I saw his pupils widen, and through migraine and dull soreness my own flames roared loud, _my own fire raged high_.

He only offered a subtle rub of his fingertips on my forehead, though, telling me it had done wonders to his own past headaches. I allowed it, only to enjoy the delicacy of his hands and his faithful stare upon me. It felt wonderful, his fingers drawing subtle circles on my skin, and truly, I could have let him do that for a whole hour, but soon enough I noticed my own hands on his thighs growing _insistent_. My body once more screamed much louder than my mind.

I looked up at his face, and I found him smiling, lowering his eyelids a little. He knew.

_Armand, he always knows. _

He gently pushed the bedsheets away, his hands already sliding down my chest while he licked his mouth _that way_ again, _oh, Heaven’s sake._

_'The Cardinal is no demon.'_

The _lies _I can tell.

I grabbed his hair, pulled him back up, _no, not like that_, I hissed. I wanted to see his eyes.

I threw him harshly on the bed, rolling on top of him with a flinch of dizziness. He gasped in surprise, the sound covered by my own moan, _God, this warmth of his will save my life._

I lifted our shirts, aligned us both, ordering him to lick his hand for me, crying out in sheer lust as he obeyed, his eyes on mine burning in fiery embers. When his fingers glistened in the timid light, I forced them between our legs, making him understand he was to repeat the previous night’s deeds.

And_, Lord, he did_.

His hand couldn't quite wrap around us both, so he focused on me, only guiding my thrusts with gentle impulses of his thighs. What he did to me, I have no clue; I felt his hand _everywhere_. I couldn't care, I couldn't breathe, pounding against his skin, watching my thumb brush his wet lips in distracting lines. My eyes were caught in his, devouring their glow as they blurred with need. He cried out, keen and pleading, and pleasure burned my very soul.

Hell’s own fire. The brightest of all.

Yet, at some point, as his deft fingers passed along my cock in a maddening rub, I growled in frustration, God, I wanted more, I wanted _everything_. He felt good, he felt amazing, welcoming my assault with wet, heated skin, but for a second, this wasn't nearly enough. My own flesh, crazed with bliss, howled to take him, to _pervade__ him_.

_I had no idea how. _

He felt my thwarting, _he always knows_, and his other hand slid between us while he licked a vicious path from my ear to my shoulder. His fingers applied pressure at the base of my shaft, wrapping and stroking and rubbing altogether, _oh God, I thought I was dying_.

He did know more than I, I was sure of it.

_A lot, a whole lot more. _

His thin, yet sturdy legs kept guiding my rabid thrusts, and the devil he can be _modulated_ his cries in my ear well enough to drive me insane. In a heartbeat, my mind blacked out, and I growled like an animal, bucking blindly against his cock, the fire in my groin spiralling quick.

The whole bed creaked, his cries grew higher. I must have hurt him, nailing him on that mattress, again and again, I didn't care. I lost my rhythm, I lost my breath. I came undone, messy, obscene, yelling his name into the crook of his neck once more.

He followed, a bit later, gently rubbing himself against my limp body a few more times, and kissing his own cries mute against my shoulder.

As we both laid there, his fragile frame still pinned under my weight, I let staggered, violent tides of pleasure ripple through my guts. All those years, I knew nothing.

While _he_ sure knew a whole lot more.

How could _this man_ know that much?

  
Tainted priest, sinful beast,_ who taught you this? _

Anger washed out the distant shame I was feeling, and I growled in pure rage. He timidly looked up, concern in his dark eyes, and I snarled at him, grabbing his wrist to force him to watch his own hand soiled with both our seeds.

“Where exactly did you learn that, _Cardinal_? "I croaked between clenched teeth.

He frowned, taking a few seconds to understand my meaning, and when he did, he gasped, his stare widening in distress.

"I assure Your Majesty," he muttered in a desperate voice, "that two days ago, my knowledge of those things was … purely theoretical."

_Theoretical? _

My eyes narrowed, and my hand almost crushed the frail bones of his wrist. He whimpered in pain. I only squeezed harder.

“Don't mock me, Armand, or I swear I'll have you _bleed_.”

“I don't!” he pleaded, squirming in my grasp. “There is – ah... a book. In my study at the Palais Cardinal.”

My grip loosened a little, enough to lessen the pain, not to ease out the fear.

“A book?”

He opened his mouth to speak, clapped it shut and bit his lips, his eyes darting around in what seemed to be embarrassment. After a while, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and by the time he spoke again, I think he was truly _blushing_.

“Every pamphlet, essay, and book suspected to be seditious or blasphemous has to pass by my study for annotation and judgment,” he explained, abashed. “The most blatant cases I take care of myself, the more mitigated I send to your desk. No matter the final decision, warning or punishment, I keep all productions in a vault, should they be needed for later trials.”

I still eyed him for a few seconds, but I saw tears of pain fill his eyes, and truly, would he lie to me, tangled in my own legs, still shivering in aftershocks?

I released his hand. He quickly wiped it on his shirt and kept it out of my sight. I nodded at him to go on, keeping my lips thin and my glare cautious.

“After the dinner you invited me to,” he stammers, “you looked like...I thought...maybe you would one day come to require this sort of service from me.”

I remembered that night, his tongue around my fingers, and the raw hunger in my skin. I wanted him, so hard he must have felt it. Of course, he did, _he always knows_.

My stare softened, and he must have noticed, because he exhaled briefly in relief, his lithe body relaxing beneath mine as he added, his voice somewhat steadier,

“I vaguely recalled the existence of that book then and picked it up from the vault. I … learned there whatever could be … possibly useful.”

“There is a _book_ about how a man can pleasure another?” I asked, disbelieving.

“Dozens, Your Majesty.” He sighed, gesturing the world outside the windows. “But I only found the one.”

“Who the Hell writes that sort of thing?”

“The one I have is the work of a so-called De Caunes.”

“I know that name.” I frowned.

He nodded elegantly.

“You had him executed eighteen months ago for a pamphlet against the Queen.”

Oh. _Well. _

After a long, heavy silence, he gingerly tried to shift away from me, as my weight was starting to make his breathing difficult, but I grabbed his waist tight to keep him in place.

"Wait," I ordered. "How much?"

“How...?” He repeated, confused.

“How much did you learn, exactly?”

He stared for a while, his bright, clever eyes diving into mine, and as always, as forevermore, he understood. He knew I wanted more. He knew I wanted all of him. He didn't speak much, he just lowered his eyelashes again, tilted his head to the side in the most seductive gesture I had ever seen in him, and slightly parted his thighs as he breathed,

“_Everything_.”

I remember I moaned loudly, leaning down to kiss his mouth. I wished he could show me, right then, right there, but we were both glued with semen, and, fool that I was, I thought we still had time.

Truth is, after we cleaned and dressed ourselves, we had an hour and a half.

  
An hour and a half we spent eating fruit and planning negotiations, writing notes and discussing repairs of the Fort.

“How is that headache of yours?” He asked gently at some point, passing graceful fingertips on my forehead.

I chuckled in joy, I have no idea why, and wondered for a moment if that was what happiness sounded like. I grabbed him around his lower back, pulled him against me and purred "_You've been of very good service_” into his ear. He moaned, his knees buckling in my embrace.  
I laughed aloud.

Ten minutes later, the messenger from La Rochelle was announced.

  
_There hasn't been one moment of peace ever since. _

After the young farm boy walked out of the room, Richelieu only stared and paced around his torn treaty for a few hours before he locked himself in his study with Joseph to write another. Clearer upon his intentions to give the City freedom of cult, the new treaty granted her two more temples to be exempt from Catholic sanctification. Making a move towards that blunt Protestant fanatic must have hurt his pride more than a bit, but then again, religion was definitely an area he was ready to make compromises in. Upon financial and political matters, the new document hadn't moved an inch and wasn't likely to ever.

The paper still came back with another messenger, an innocent youngster all the same, who only said the new Mayor, despite all the respect he had for his King, wouldn’t believe a demon’s lie. The Crown’s troops had to withdraw without conditions, or face this war until the end.

I expected at least a fraction of last time's reaction, a sigh, a whimper of despair, or at least paleness on his cheeks, but the Cardinal didn’t even flinch, his dark eyes frozen in resolve, and I watched in concern how fast he had begun to thicken the wall around his emotions.

He was preparing for the worst. He knew what was coming. He was building the _war machine_ he would soon need to become.

“That is very much what I intend to do.” He stated at the messenger, dismissing him with a stern nod.

The boy walked out, stepping backwards, flat-out terrified.

_A man inside those walls, with even half of Richelieu’s willpower._

In times of war, fate needs nothing more to unleash Hell than a single pair of headstrong men.

The next day, his teeth clenched and his eyes resolute, Richelieu rode around his walls for ten hours straight, his armour glistening in the pouring rain, his orders whipping in the wind, his presence ominous and dark. All forts were quickly equipped with double walls, and the pikes around the seawall are now more iron than wood.

He strengthened his siege walls just as fast as he strengthened his soul. From the moment Guiton took control of La Rochelle, answering to our emissaries by muskets and cannon fire, the Red Beast has, in fact, barely left his armour.

When he doesn’t wear it, he goes for his thick formal robes, along with that heavy fur coat that makes his silhouette more impressive than ever. Men bow lower on his passage; hate grows stronger among Officers, fear rules as the only shadow behind his steps.

_A war machine, by now, is all he has become._

I wouldn’t mind, truly. I understand. This is how he deals with his fears. He drowns himself in hard work, he calculates his nightmares out. It has worked in the past, every time, actually. He wraps his fragile heart in steel and stone, and he crushes everything in his path.

I wouldn’t mind, I swear. Needs must, after all.

But what I _cannot tolerate_, is the fact that while he has isolated himself from the whole world inside his self-made fortress of ice, he also moved away from_ me_.

Since the day of the torn treaty, he has hardly laid his eyes on me. We barely talk. I felt a few desperate looks on me at first, but they gradually turned into dull, resigned politeness. I have come to a point where I find it hard to believe in the faint memory of his soft cries against my cheek.

I have shown myself lenient, giving him time to come to his senses.

_He’ll come to me_, I thought. _He always does._

But truth be told, I kept waiting.

I kept waiting as he rode around the whole siege force, barked orders at stunned builders, sent his hawk for more secrets, wrote letters to the Louvre.

I kept waiting as he had all of Guiton's friends and relatives outside the City found, arrested, and brought back to Fort Louys for questioning. He never told me much about it, but I think I know exactly how far his _questioning_ can go. The Fort's cellar walls are thick and old, but I am neither deaf nor blind.

  
I kept waiting as he tortured those men and women, sending their confessions signed with their own blood straight to Guiton's desk. La Rochelle didn't answer, but informants confirmed the rumours about the Red Demon were growing hideous inside the City.

  
More and more citizens of La Rochelle were beginning to understand who exactly they were facing, and opponents rose inside Guiton's own council, begging him to negotiate.

He responded by setting fire to all French flags above his towers.

Richelieu watched France's colours burn in complete silence, and then quietly sent Guiton a copy of the death sentence letter for three of his closest relatives, based upon the confessions he obtained from them with _red-hot iron pliers_.

I wouldn’t mind, I truly wouldn’t, war is a nightmare, and needs must, after all. But as his acts of war grew harsher and cruel, he started to _actively_ avoid my touch, and I do not appreciate that _at all_.

How can he dare pretend nothing happened_? Look at me, filthy beast._

I made a decision, I will not turn back, and I swear to God, _neither will you._

As days went by I felt anger rising, hardened with frustration, and I grew tired of waiting. I was considering dragging him back into my bed, tearing that heavy fabric off his skin and forcing his him to understand the difference between the rest of the world, and his only Master.

But meanwhile, winter came, and this one was _merciless. _

Thick layers of snow covered the forts and the walls, the wind doubled, the skies darkened. Frost was biting the soldiers’ feet, and fires had to be maintained so the men wouldn't freeze to death. I had ten physicians summoned from Nantes, charging them with tending the troop's sicknesses and chilblains.

  
We heard buildings collapsing inside the City, and we knew they too had to find wood somehow.

Tales of the first five thousand deaths inside La Rochelle reached our ears, and Joseph’s agents _intra muros _started to beg more than they spoke. The black monk asked Richelieu to grant safe passage to at least a few of them, for their service to the Crown, but the Red Man refused.

“They know their duty.” He only hissed. “They should be glad to be facing death as loyal soldiers of France.”

Joseph sighed but dared no argument. In this, more than anything else, I realised that beneath those thick layers of steel and silk, the gentle creature that moaned under my weight was no more.

_A war machine is all he has become._

I wanted to force his warmth back to me, I swear I did, but meanwhile, winter came, and frost knows no difference between Kings and lesser men.

Sickness takes us all just the same.

My inspection tours have been my favourite duty by far since the first day of this war. Soldiers never failed to cheer up at my sight, my Officers eager to demonstrate their skills and bravery. Even the workers grew accustomed to my presence, allowing me to test and learn about their techniques. Each regiment could see me at least once a day, and each Marshal could get an audience twice a week.

But as the streams froze in ice, and the rain turned to hail, my fragile lungs started spasming in pain again. I ignored them at first, hissing offers of assistance away, hopping on my horse and moving further. But fool that I was, thinking I could hide the growing agony in my chest for long.

Not to him. Not one chance.

Because though days of my patient waiting could not move Richelieu out of his armour of ice, the slightest cough of mine snapped his attention back to me just fine. He didn’t say a word, though, he didn’t make a move, he simply had the physician Citoys summoned from Paris the very next day.

The practitioner started following me like a shadow, and though it angered me to no end, I was forced to admit his presence had a purpose- this time, the pain had come to stay.

The fever broke after a week, nailing me to bed for thirty hours. Notes from the siege had to be brought to me twice a day, most of them signed by Richelieu himself.

Though the Cardinal was there in Fort Louys to greet me as I got up, he didn't deign to visit my sickbed _once._

Frustration and bitterness rose alright, and I swore to myself to make him _pay_.

But sickness kept running faster than my plans. 

I tried to start my inspection tours again, but each one of them had a price in fever and torment. I kept up the pace as much as I could, but after the fifth fit of pyrexia, I had no choice but to consent to remain inside Fort Louys, managing as much of the siege as I could from the roaring warmth of the reception room.

Here I am now, standing on weak legs as close to the hearth as I can, watching Richelieu work his health away at the table in front of me.

Around him, the Master Builders of the seawall and the forts, architect Metezeau and bricklayer Thiriot. Each one, in turn, proposes fortification works upon the siege line, Richelieu sorting through them with rapid waves of his hands, dismissing them all, except a happy few. Those ones he submits to me, waiting for my approval before he sets them in motion.

Joseph, his all-seeing shadow in black, is translating our scarce words into exhaustive written orders without a glance or a question. The monk's tension is palpable and has been so for the last two months.

His informants inside the City told him weeks ago that Guiton has been communicating with England every day, no doubt begging Charles for help.

“Well, good luck with that.” I sneered as the news was brought to me. “Charles is facing his provinces’ refusal to pay the royal taxes as we speak, and I’d bet my own ships there is not a 'penny' left in his vaults those days.”

Richelieu said that though Guiton's foolish hope might explain his stubbornness, we still had to expect Buckingham to raise another float on his own fortune.

I would have been a fool to ignore that, staring at a man who had paid for a whole war _city _with his own money.

I thus approved of all his fortification works.

The clever beast knows what he is doing.

_A war machine, after all, is all he has become._

The minute the builders know what is asked of them, he sends both men away with an imperious gesture, and as Joseph finishes his writing, he comes to stand, magnificent, in front of the high window, watching the City in restrained fury.

He always did that, it's true, but since the day Guiton was elected his look upon the City changed from hopeful admiration to muted despair at first, then steadily turning into a blind rage.

_A war machine, nothing much more._

  
I open my mouth to call on him, but a nasty cough seizes my words, turning them into an ugly rumbling sound. The pain in my chest rises from oblivion, grows wild, makes my skin crawl. Instead of speaking, I end up dizzy, leaning against the nearest wall, Citoys, who’s never far away, already running towards me.

Winter came, merciless.

_And sickness takes all men just the same. _

Citoys forces me to sit and hands me a cup of his damned grog. I want to send them away, both physician and his potions, but I cannot seem to find my breath, panting like an old hound there in that chair, boiling in frustration at how _useless_ I am becoming.

I miss my troops, I miss my men. Not being able to shake their hands is sucking out the life of me.

There is only one encouraging side in this bloody mess.

  
While I was about to beat Richelieu into looking my way, now that sickness is crushing me, I almost feel him tempted to pick up a lute for me again. He doesn’t show much of it, locked behind his own fortress as he is, but I know every twitch of him by now.

His wary eyes are never leaving mine once as I drink Citoy's poison and wince in disgust, shivering like an old man. _Now_, it seems, I have his full attention. Through fatigue, and what is no doubt another fit of fever coming near, I still recall a glimpse of his warm skin against mine, of his deft hands under my shirt.

On a whim, I send everyone out, all _except him. _

Citoys bows and hurries to the door. Joseph simply walks, with a worried look upon us both.

When the door clicks shut, I extend my hand towards him, beckoning without a taste for compromise. I try not to speak, I'll only cough more, and the sounds of it are getting nastier every day.  
He does walk close, but not enough to touch. My fists clench in anger.

_“Armand_.” I hiss in warning.

Idiot that I am.

I cough my guts out of course, and when I'm done coughing, I'm nothing more than a miserable heap of panting flesh, covered in cold sweat and sobbing in agony. I take some time before I look back at him, but when I do, I think his shell has finally cracked. His eyes are filled with anguish, covering me in worrying care.

And yet, as I gesture for him to come closer, he only kneels in a loud whisper of fabric, inches from me, but _still not touching. _

I reach out for his hair.

He gently moves away.

  
I wish I could growl, but I only whimper.

“Why?” I rasp, destroyed by fever just as much as yearning.

He flinches then, closing his eyes in despair, and I am almost happy to see him join his hands upon his mouth and bite again, because though he's clearly breaking down, at least his old self is showing.

When he opens his eyes again, it is a disgusted look for himself and the City outside the window.

“I beg Your Majesty not to soil his hands by touching me anymore.” He finally speaks, his voice tense with sorrow. “My soul has never been of much worth, I fear, but please, Your Majesty, for the love of everything you are, stay away from the despicable thing I have become.”

I frown, _now what the Hell is he talking about?_

“You have done no more than wage war in my name, Cardinal.” I rumble, low enough to let out a few words without coughing.

At this, he shakes his head gently, raising a begging hand inches above my knee.

“I am not referring to what I have done” he cries, “but to what I am about to do.”

Before I can reply, he chooses a corner of my coat, the furthest from my body as he can find, lifts it up to his lips and kisses it twice, his eyes on the floor somewhere between my boots. He briefly squeezes his eyes shut, breathes a polite apology into my blue brocade, and slides up and to the door with swift, pained elegance.

I know calling him back would only mean more agony, so I sit here stunned and longing, focusing on that spot of fabric he kissed, realising through a thickening mist of fever that those darker spots there could only be his tears.


	6. February 10th 1628, Castle of Aytré, Estuary of La Rochelle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Warnings : sickness, delirium

The world has gone still.

My time is now measured between my windows and the hearth, one laboured breath after the other. Each one is a new battle to face. My skin hasn’t been dry for a month; my nights haven’t been quiet for a week.

As I found myself unable to even stand up from my chair on that day after Richelieu walked out on me, I called Citoys back, and he had me carried to my bedroom in Aytré, _for a temporary rest_ as he said.

Optimistic, I ordered horses to be prepared for another inspection tour in the next few hours.

_Fool that I was._

_   
_I have barely walked out of the bedroom since.

They say it's cold fluid in the lungs, they say it's bad blood, they say so many things. No one can tell me when I'll be able to walk again, so I don't care about their reasons. I'm sick with this wooden ceiling, this closed space, this dull emptiness, _that's what I am. _

My universe is reduced to a dose of medicine every hour, a frugal meal three times a day, and an everlasting dialogue with my own pain. One day of this could be enough to drive me insane.

_It’s been fifteen. _

_‘It’ll be thirty, it’ll be a hundred.’_

The voice of my pain, hissing in the wind.

‘_You’ll never leave this place.’_

Oh, God, make it stop.

What time is it? What is the news from the siege line?

Come on, bloody sorcerer, come back here already, bring me all the poison you like, as long as you bring me a _n__ote _as well.

His handwriting. The only thing the monster in silk lets me have of him since the bastard obviously still doesn't see fit to pay any visit. Those notes are the landmarks of my days, and most of the time, my only reason to wake.

His handwriting. I haven't seen anything else of him.

Fifteen days. _Fifteen days. _

_‘The_ c_unning priest, the wicked beast_,_’ _my pain whispers.

_‘He’ll take your throne, laugh at your grave.’_

  
Make it stop, oh, _make it stop._

_‘You’ll never leave this place.’_

I try and sit up to get a glimpse of the city, but pain forbids the smallest movement of my arms. I groan in rage, only to cough again, spitting thick mucus on my bedsheets. Pain pierces my chest, stops my heart, and splits my breath in two. I’m thirsty; _oh, for God’s sake, I am useless._

_‘You always have been.’ _

_'Always have been.'_

I let out a strangled sob, gripping the pillow on my right. I’ll die before I admit that I refuse to have it washed because it’s the one he slept upon, the smell of his hair lingering on the silk there.

_Where is the Christian King? What has he turned into?_

Make it stop.

Why does he never come? That beast is my _servant_. He should be sleeping at the feet of my bed, begging for a look, craving for a word. I am Louis the Thirteenth, I am the King of France, and I should see my Minister whenever it bloody pleases me.

I'll make him pay. He’ll know his place, _he’ll know his place._

I’ll have him crawl, I’ll have him bleed.

One more fit of coughing. My whole body shakes in agony, and my stomach turns inside out. I lean over the edge of the bed to vomit, but nothing comes out, except a long trickle of yellow spit.

_‘You’re dying, you’re dying, without an heir, without a State.’_

_Armand! -_ my mind calls out.

  
Why am I calling this snake? He never cared.

_'Tainted by sin, devoured by ambition.'_

The voice of my pain, hissing in the wind.

_Where is the Christian King? _

Tainted priest, monster in silk, I’ll have you exiled, if not shot down.

_Oh, dear God, how my chest hurts. _

A knock on the door. I grunt.

Citoys comes in, and to my utter joy, Treville walks behind him, a sealed note in his hand.

He sent Treville. _Thank God, he sent Treville._

_   
_When he doesn’t give his note straight to Citoys, he usually sends Joseph, which is the worst of all, because the damned monk hardly ever speaks, only helping me drink and suggesting I sleep. I always expect the rabid hawk to tell me my time has come someday, and that he has been charged by Death Herself to come and take me away. I make our meetings as short as possible, his all-seeing eyes on my sins, burning me more than the fever does.

But fortunately, from time to time, Richelieu sends me Toiras. Or, just like now, brave, blunt _Treville. _

I weakly gesture the Captain to come closer, but Citoys is the first to reach my bed.

He hands me a cup of his grog, and I whine wrathfully, in vain. That physician is a _mule_. He doesn’t let go of me until I’ve drunk it all, despite the furious spasms of my stomach.

He wipes my brow, changes my shirt, rubs a few oils upon my chest, the stinging smell of them making me gag in revulsion. After a while, he’s finally gone, and I offer Treville an exhausted smile. The brave man bows, sympathy and concern written on his clean-cut face and hands me Richelieu’s note with a click of his heels.

With a blissful groan, I tear the seal open, unfolding the two white sheets with fingers I cannot discipline. His handwriting.

_‘You’ll never touch his hands again.’_

Make it stop, for God's sake.

‘_To His Majesty, King of France._

__  
  
‘No trace or news from England still. The damages on the eastern wall of Fort Louys will be finished in two days. A small part of Fort Anne's roof crumbled two hours ago due to the weight of the snow. Repairs have been ordered. 

_'Troops are in good health and state of mind. Only a few dozen cases of chilblain. One of them had his foot removed, and has been decommissioned to Nantes. His name is Antonin Chavier. Please have the kindness to sign his recommendation letter attached. _

I turn the page around to check the second sheet. Joseph’s writing. Basic recommendation.

_Fine. _I ask Treville for a quill and sign the letter in quick initials, going straight back to the note.

_‘Mayor Guiton still refusing diplomacy. One of Father Joseph’s agents has been uncovered, being foolish enough to insist too much upon the City’s surrender. Guiton dropped his corpse from La Rochelle’s Eastern tower._

_‘Measures had to be taken. _

I frown. I look up at Treville, showing him the note, my fingertip tapping on that one line.

_“Measures?”_ I croak.

The captain bites his lips and has a sullen look for the windows.

“His Eminence arrested five men he suspected of spying for Guiton among our troops.” He sighs.

I am not sick enough to miss the nervous twitch of his jaw. This is not all.

“…what did he do to them?” I ask, heaving.

Treville winces, his gaze still on La Rochelle, and adds with what could be a genuine hint of terror,

“He had them all beheaded, the bodies still warm dropped in front of the City gates, and had their five severed heads aligned at their feet, faces towards the skies, so they could be identified from the ramparts above. We heard men and women _howl_ in grief there for three hours.”

I curse under my breath; _the raging maniac._

A war machine, and nothing more.

He knew what was coming. He knew where his own resolve would push him.

_'I am not referring to what I have done, but to what I am about to do.'_

I have seen the strength of Richelieu’s willpower. How he can lock his sensitive heart under a thick layer of iron, and march upon broken bones without a twitch of an eye. It has allowed him to win over a thousand enemies, it has silenced his storm within. It made him destroy country-wide plots, design intricate mazes, all the while containing, day in, day out, a raging _whirlwind of madness_.

Without that inhuman determination, there wouldn't have been victories. No edicts, no decrees. No pride and no grandeur.

No _Louis, le Juste_. Not even once.

But it comes with a price. It exhausts him_, it bleeds him dry. _

I have seen him keeping up with those inhuman _shows of force_ for a long time. Days, weeks sometimes. The longer he has to hold, the harder is the fall, of course, but he never once broke down before the job was done.

  
How long has it been now?

_I cannot even count. _

I rub my eyes with one hand, the other trembling around the note.

  
_One man inside those walls, with more than half of Richelieu's willpower._

Fate doesn’t need more. This is only the beginning.

_'A week's supplies of wheat and wine has been delivered safely to Fort La Prée as per your instructions. Schomberg declares his men healthy and ready. _

_'The last reports from inside the walls speak of ten thousand deaths. Only two informants still messaging. The last treaty still stands, as you are, of course, aware we cannot make further advance._

_'It is my sincerest wish that you make a full recovery as soon as possible. Be assured of my devoted efforts. _

_'Please expect the next note in twelve hours. _

_'Armand Cardinal de Richelieu._

I huff in bitterness at first. Knowing his usual style in writing, damn, this is below the bare minimum. The equivalent of a stern nod and a handshake, f_or God's sake, you moaned in bliss against my neck. _

_Tainted priest, monster in silk - _

But as I narrow my eyes, I think I notice something about his signature. Yes. I'm not dreaming, he thickened the trait of the “Armand.” He actually wrote it twice, elegantly placing new lines above the first. I couldn’t be noticed by anyone else, you have to _know_ what to search for. God, the paranoid lunatic couldn't bear to write “Yours sincerely” on a secret note carried by Treville himself, he had to _double the trait of his first name. _

_Armand – _my mind dazedly calls out, and deep inside my suffering chest, a spark of flame still manages to rise.

He _wants me_ to call him that way.

_Oh God, I need to touch his hair. _

My breath once more turns into a horrid cough. Treville hands me water, I nod my thanks in rough shivers. I have a look for his signature again. Armand._ Only Armand. _

I take a short breath and exhale, determined. _I want him back._

I’ll force him flush against my skin if it’s the last thing I ever do.

I am the King of France, this man is my _servant._

I made a decision, I will not turn back, and I swear to God, neither will he. No matter how your insane ruthlessness drenches you in blood, you'd better remember I am Louis the Thirteenth, wicked beast, and I am King by divine right.

_The worth of your soul is mine to decide. _

I will soil my hands if I wish to. I soiled my hands last month already.

_I soiled my hands thirteen years ago. _

I’ll make you come back. I’ll have you obey.

_I will - _

I know I will, but not right now. _Heavens, I’m tired_. I carefully fold back the note twice, and sink into my bed, holding it tight in my both hands. Tomorrow. I’ll call him tomorrow. He will obey, he will -

Treville frowns, but as my eyes struggle to remain open, he just bows again and turns around to tiptoe towards the door.

He is halfway gone when my blurred mind remembers Antonin Chavier.

My eyes snap open, and I call Treville back, sliding out of bed and walking up to him to hand him that recommendation letter_, wait, the poor man lost his foot, I owe him nothing less._

White mist is thickening in front of my eyes _now where does that come from_, but I think I see the Captain's face crumble with horror as he turns around, _what is it, I'm just coughing. I've been coughing for..._

I stare down at the paper. I stare down at my hand.

  
I stare down at my shirt, the floor, my feet, _really, is this my blood? _

The mist darkens. The world recedes.

  
I hear the dull sound of my own body as it hits the floor in sheer disgrace.

Treville's boots are, I fear, the last thing I’ll ever see.

***

I open my eyes, this is not my bed.

This is something smaller, less comfortable. It feels like a stretcher, with the comfort of linen sheets.

I open my eyes, but the dark mist is still there.

I pick up voices, Citoys, Treville. I hear others, but I can’t name them.

_“You're dying, you're dying, without an heir, without a name.”_

Oh. So, obviously, the voice of pain is still there too.

I whimper as I feel the world dissolving around me, darkness threatening to drag me in, _oh no, no way, I am not going back to sleep._

Sleep was haunted, sleep was torture.

  
I laid naked on a cold ground, my bones shattered by my mother’s feet. Gaston at her side, laughing, laughing, my wife licking around his ear. I stood frozen into the dark, searching for red in clouds of smoke, only to find in heaps of silk the bloodless corpse of my Armand. His corpse so dry it didn’t rot, staring at me through darkened eyes.  
I sat on a rugged stone, facing the day of my Judgement; the Lord above in merciless tones speaking about a nameless sin. The Gates of Hell opened for me, and I gazed down at fiery flames.

_Where is the Christian King?_

I’m not going, I’m not going.

I shake the mist off my eyes, fighting darkness, cursing that blur, and I blindly extend my arm, grabbing the first thing I can touch. It is the sheath of a long sword.

“Y-Your M-Majesty?”

_Toiras, of course. My dear Jean. _

I blink and groan, darkness beckons, but I’m not going back.

_‘You’re dying, you’re dying’,_ no, make it stop.

_Bring me Armand,_ he'll make it stop.

I grip the sheath, pull it towards me. Through the mist, I sense the shadow of the huge man covering my face, and I struggle until I find my voice.

“Where is he?” I gasp.

I groan again as Toiras whispers something I cannot understand, but I hear Treville, God bless this man, say he knows who I’m calling for. I search for the Captain, somewhere behind Toiras, and I see his dim blue silhouette moving aside, making way for a tall frame in red.

I sigh in bliss, at last, _Armand_.

I knew he’d come. _He always does. _

‘_The_ c_unning priest, the wicked beast, he’ll take your throne, laugh at your grave_.’

Make it stop, oh, _make it stop._

_‘You're dying, you're dying, you’ll never leave this place.’_

I grunt in pain, fighting the mist, reaching for him, come here, Armand, my whole chest hurts.

The taste of blood upon my tongue, the twist of nausea inside my guts. I struggle, panting, against the gaping hole of my own mind.

_'You're dying'_ my pain says, oh, Armand, just make it stop.

I don't want to go back there.

Red silk whispers closer, and darkness protests, darkness screeches.

I hear his voice, I thank the skies, but just his voice is not enough.

Touch me, Armand, oh do it now, darkness is there, she wants me dead. The Hell with your doubt, I am King of divine right, I’ll decide your soul’s worth. Now obey me, monster in silk, obey me, my clever beast, just obey me.

_Obey me, and I’ll do anything._

Oh, God.

Fingertips of silk graze my forehead, drawing subtle, soft circles there, just like that last, sunlit morning. He’s wearing gloves, and I vaguely remember the bite marks they must be hiding, but those are his hands on my tired skin, delicate and worried, skilled and featherweight.

Skies brighten in a heartbeat. The world falls into place, my name has a meaning.

I hold onto him, and the mist dissolves.

  
_I told you his warmth would save my life. _

I blink one last time, and my vision clears. He's there, sitting on the floor next to the litter they have laid me in, pale and worried, massaging my head in careful moves. I see bright as day, I breathe free at last. I focus on the pain, I listen to the wind, but I don’t hear much of them anymore, only the beating of my own heart.

He came to me.

_Darkness has gone._

He notices I'm awake, and quickly withdraws his hands from me, as if stricken by shame,_ **no**, don't you dare - _

‘_Armand_’ I want to growl, but he discretely presses a finger against his mouth, darting a glance around us. 

I follow his gaze and find Toiras, anguish painted on his faithful face, with dear Treville at his side. Behind them, Citoys and two army physicians are discussing in stern voices, getting no doubt more potions prepared.

“He needs to be sent back as soon as possible” Citoys presses. “Or his state will continue to worsen.”

“His Majesty will n-never want to leave the s-siege” Toiras throws over his shoulder. “We’re at war, ph-physician.”

The doctors keep on arguing, and God, I hate when people talk about me like I’m not even there. Mother used to do that all the time until I boiled in frustration.

“I know of His Majesty’s sense of duty” Citoys keeps pleading, “and I assure you I wouldn’t insist if this weren’t from now a question of life and death. He _has_ to be sent back.”

_Sent back where? What is happening?_

I look back at Armand next to me, his red-gloved hands tightly clenched around each other on his lap as if to forbid himself from touching me. I can’t find my voice, but it’s fine. With him, I don’t need to speak. I demand explanations with a stern glare, and he sighs, licking his lips the way he does at Council.

When he has to find the right words fast.

He seems to hesitate for a moment as if his own opinion wasn’t sure, and God, this is the rarest of things. But eventually, as my hand crawls to grab his sleeve and twist it imperiously, he whimpers and speaks, his voice softer than ever.

“Your Majesty, your lungs are taken. All physicians agree you cannot recover in this climate. Winter will last for another two months on the Ocean coast, and we fear the worst long before that time.”

What? Are you saying…

_Are you out of your **mind**?_

I groan and move to sit up, but I barely shift at all, for, despite my strong intent, there is not a scrap of energy in my cold bones.

I heave, furious, trying at least to shake my head, but Armand just adds, his pale brow frowning in despair,

“Your Majesty, I beg you to understand. There is no time to lose. We have waited until the last moment, trying everything we could, but today, a decision needs to be taken.”

He's not lying.

_God, he’s not lying._

I’ll truly die if I stay here, that’s why he came, I’m sure it is.

He looks drained, he looks weary, and I wonder for how long the red circles around his eyes have been there. His hair is wet with rain or snow, and he looks like he has lost weight. The show of force taking its toll, how long has it been now?

_God, how mighty the fall will be._

I cannot leave that man down here. He doesn’t know, he cannot understand, war is a nightmare. He’d only kill himself, by madness or cannonball, and I’d be left here on my own, with that map of Europe only he can comprehend, a King without a plan, a State without a mind.

'Come with me' I mouth soundlessly.

His eyes close. Tears roll down his white cheeks. He pulls my hand off his sleeve, delicately shifting out of my touch, and I wonder if his gloves are truly there to hide bite marks - _or prevent our skins from touching. _

_‘I beg Your Majesty not to soil his hands by touching me anymore.’_

No, Armand, don't you **_dare,_** I'll be the judge of your soul's worth.

I soil my hands if I want to.

Obey me, or I’ll make you.

“I beg you to leave me.” He breathes. “Too much here is at stake. What is begun must be finished, France cannot afford this one defeat.”

I shake my head again, trying to speak, only inhaling in horrible sounds, like trees about to fall. He leans down towards me,_ God, he's beautiful_, I want to touch his hair. He knows, the damned beast, and he crawls away one inch further, _no, you won't, I am your King, you - _

“You'll only die here.” I manage to pant.

His mouth tenses then, thick gates of steel closing into his eyes for a second.

“I will not fail Your Majesty.” He hammers, resolute. “La Rochelle will submit to the State, or crumble into dust.”

My eyes widen, I know they do. It's true, I forgot, there is strength in his madness. I've seen him on that seawall, facing alone the monster ship, with a rabid monk and twenty guns. I smell the stench of torture in the waves of thick red silk. I sense the screams of the widows of La Rochelle, nothing more than a gush of wind in his silver hair.

  
I know, I forgot, he wraps his fragile heart in layers of iron, and he _marches upon broken bones._

The war city he designed, the flawless clockwork of wood and stone.

The Eminentissime Richelieu.

  
_A war machine, and nothing else. _

If I have to leave, I have to leave him there.

Because if he doesn't succeed, then who the Hell will?

_Who the Hell will? _

I sigh, cough weakly. I nod, eventually. So be it.

_So be it._

Cringing in regret, I turn my head towards Toiras and Treville, beckoning them near with a tilt of my head. As they approach nervously, bowing stiff, eager to serve, I focus on my voice, praying the darkness to grant me at least a few sentences.

“It would seem God will not allow me to continue this battle with you, my fellow soldiers,” I whisper, steady enough, but miserably low, and both Officers spontaneously kneel next to Armand to hear me properly.

This doesn't look like news to them at all, and they murmur in unison promises of their lives laid down in my name. I nod. _I know. _

I draw their attention to Armand with a pathetic wave of my hand, but I am blessed with a bit more strength in my voice as I declare,

“I hereby name the Cardinal Generalissime of The Land Army and Fleet. He will have, in my absence, complete authority upon the whole Province, and you are all to obey him just as you would myself, for he bears my banner, as well as my unconditional trust.”

Neither of them looks surprised, but while Toiras only smiles and nods, Treville glares at Armand in raw doubt, eyeing him suspiciously before he bows in his turn.

Armand, his gaunt face still drenched in tears, picks up a corner of my sheets to kiss it in devotion, ignoring the howling protest of my whole skin, _Armand! Will you obey, you filthy -_

He speaks again, with no less fervour than he would in the heart of Notre-Dame,

“You will return to La Rochelle as rightful Master and unquestioned King, to be offered the Te Deum under the highest of her towers.”

I only heave in distant hunger, _oh I'll make you pay, I'll make you pay if only I had some strength in me._

_Heavens, I'm tired._

“May God hear you, Generalissime.”

And with that, I give a firmer nod. All three men stand up, gesture at the physicians. A few calls and my litter is lifted by four soldiers, carefully brought outside to a waiting carriage, _hah._ Obviously, my refusal had never been an option. 

It seems there was truly no time to lose _at all_.

As they place my bed into the sturdy vehicle, I see Richelieu and Joseph make the final arrangements with an escort of fifty men. Among them, at least ten Musketeers, gathered around Treville as he barks his last instructions in his usual _personal _style.

Valets hurry around with trunks and bags, a few cooks loading supplies into the four carts that would be my suite.

_'You'll die without a name, on a lonely road far away from his warmth.'_

Oh, God, please, _not again._

I am tired, _so tired; _if only the pain could let me breathe for a short while. After a few moments, the carriage doors already close upon me, and darkness awaits, snickering around the corners of my eyes, _no, wait, not yet. _

_'You'll die without a state, he'll laugh upon your grave.”_

_  
_I don't want to go back yet.

I faintly reach for the door, pushing it ajar with a trembling hand. The valet who was closing it gasps in apology and comes closer for orders. I want to ask Armand to be called, but of course, _of course_, the red beast sees _everything_, and I notice him already striding towards the carriage behind the valet's shoulder.

I gesture him in. He hesitates, but he obeys.

I make him close all the doors and curtains. He falters, but he complies.

  


I can't sit up, I can't even move, but it's fine. With him, I don't need to. I just stare at him for a while, waiting, and he will know.

_Armand, he always knows. _

The pain is right, the pain is true, I might die there on the road. I may never come back. I’d die without an heir, I’d die without a state, and they’d shoot him down within a day.

His shell of composure lasts for a whole minute. The next second he's on his knees in a strangled sob, his face buried in the sheets around my feet, crying of a loss that is yet to come. I hiss because I'm sick of this distance he imposes upon us, because I'm tired of being cold, because darkness is there whispering my name, and perhaps because there are tears in my eyes too.

I might be dead within a week, I’ll make him obey if it’s the last thing I do.

_Do as I say, you filthy beast, I’ll be the judge of your soul’s worth. _

I grab the rim of his coat, urge him towards me. When I meet his soaked eyes and see he still wouldn't touch me, I order him in a low, threatening growl,

“Give me your blessing, _Cardinal_.”

  
He shivers, refuses, whispers about his being undeserving, his hands flying up to his heart as if touching me would set us both on fire, and God, I swear it could, for all I care.

“_Armand,_” I command. “_Now_.”

Gulping noisily, he extends a shaking hand above my forehead, murmuring a few Latin words, keeping his fingers two inches above my skin as he delicately draws a cross in the air_, oh, enough of that._

I’ll force him flush against my skin if it’s the last thing I ever do.

I am the King of France, this man is my _servant._

I’ll have him obey.

_I will - _

He gasps in shock, and I realise I found the strength to grab his hand into mine, rip the glove off, and press his fingers firmly against my cheek. He whimpers, loud and desperate, the flame of his desire roaring, intact, behind a thick layer of shame. He resists, he does, but not half as strong as he could. Under my fingers I feel his skin tortured and torn, the bite marks deeper than they’ve ever been.

“Your Majesty, no, _please_,” he begs, trying to pull his hand free, but I don’t care.

Darkness awaits, it wants me dead, and the voices will come back the minute he is out of my sight I know, but right now, his skin is against mine, the world has settled into place, my name has a meaning, Armand, _my Armand. _

I take the time I have left,_ all of it,_ pulling his hand against my mouth, devouring the shudders rippling through his arm. He cries, _God, how he cries, _his exhausted eyes blurred with sorrow, circled in purple and an ugly shade of blue. He weeps, tortured by self-hatred and want, and how I love those sounds of his. I feed on them for a long time, yanking them out of his very throat with every shift of my lips, and only when my strength gives up on me does his hand break free, sending him crumbling back against the sheets in gasping sobs.

I want more, I’ll never stop wanting more, and I’ll force him back to me again. I’ll make him obey, I know I will, but not right now. _Heavens, I’m tired_.

I give him time, expecting him to just regain his lowest form of dignity and run out of my reach without a word, but it seems this man was born to surprise me, because after a while, instead of darting away, his clever stare blinks back to life, and he gently slides to my face's level.

I want to ask, but I can't, because he carefully lifts the thin white linen sheet I am wrapped into, and covers a side of my face with it, just the cheek, the ear, and a corner of my mouth.

His gestures are so caring, so tender I bite my lips and keep quiet, far too afraid to scare him away.

He just lays down the frail sheet, making sure our skins don't even brush once, and when it's done, _oh God_, he leans closer, and kisses the fabric there, in a blissful path from my mouth up to my ear.

I moan in rapture, my whole body quivering, buzzing with warmth, drowned in sunlight.

My name has a meaning, _I own the whole world._

His mouth lingers, and I _feel_ through the sheet his hot breath and slick tongue, my eyes rolling back, out of control.

“_Mon Roi_.” He breathes into my ear and pretending those words are anything else but pure, unquestioning _love_ would be lying straight at the face of God. 

I let out a strangled sigh, and if my eyes squeeze shut upon a tear of joy, it is delirium, I swear, and nothing more.

Before I catch my breath, of course, he's gone, and I keep my eyes closed, letting darkness prevail as the carriage starts rolling away. I refuse to watch, I refuse to think, I just lie there as the voices crawl back into my mind, I just lie there as the world dissolves around me again.

The torture of sleep, I almost _welcome it._

I'll sit on that rock, I'll stare down the flames. I'll watch him die, I'll watch Mother laugh.

I'll face Judgement a thousand times, I swear, as long as I can hold that square of sheet right between my hands.


	7. February 25th 1628, Royal Apartments The Louvre, Paris

It took me a while to stop looking for red.

The journey to Paris, and the first days back in the Louvre, of course, are a blur. More physicians, I think. More remedies. Whispers of death, voices of pain. I don't recall who wiped my brow or changed my sheets, I don't remember who spoke my name, who made me eat.

I only know that every time I opened my eyes, I hoped for the same red.

His breath in my ear echoed in every moan fever torn out of me, and I spent hours in between dreams, chasing the ghost of his fingertips. My skin howled, my body craved, and through the mist of my sickness I saw him lay down next to me a thousand times, but as my hands moved and reached out, they always closed upon thin air.

  
Red had gone.

Red was far away, facing the ocean in my name, beneath angry skies and frozen winds.

But every time my vision cleared, I saw the walls of my bedroom, and the face of my mother instead.

  


She was there, sobbing in concern, every time, every day. She didn't sneer, she didn't laugh, she didn't blame me for my own misery. She didn't even mention Gaston once, patting my cheeks with a warm cloth, reciting prayers in Italian.

Lost in fever and exhaustion, the glow of anthracite out of my reach, I felt drawn to her comfort by an inescapable force.

I remembered her whenever I ran in her boudoir as a child, turning towards me with a heartfelt, radiant smile.

  
I remembered her, embracing both Gaston and me, kissing our brows in her extravagant Italian warmth.

And as I heard the soft, soothing voice she used when she held my shaking hand, when she wiped my quivering mouth, I remembered I've been missing it for a bloody lifetime.

“My son, “ she said. “My beloved Louis.”

And I wanted to believe. _I wanted it so badly. _

There was a whisper in my head, ever-watching and clear, warning me her love had always been a lie. There was a whisper in my heart, lucid and wise, telling me none of her tears were ever shed without a purpose.

But I knew that voice, and it felt so far away.

Beneath angry skies and frozen winds.

“My son, “ she said. “My beloved Louis.”

And I wanted to believe.

How many have there been of those blissful days, cradled by her words, comforted by her hands; how many exactly?

How many hours before the warm glint in her eyes cracked and shattered like the mirror she once broke, and her voice wrapped itself into that disgusting cloak of hypocrisy again?

Not enough. _Not nearly enough. _

With every step I made towards recovery, the soft joy in her words diminished and blurred.

With every step I took towards my own life, the warmth in her hands grew stern and distant.

As I finally stood, got dressed and opened the windows wide, breathing life into my restored lungs, her arms had no comfort for me anymore, and her smile was gone for good. As I announced I felt ready to take back my duties as a King, ending the temporary Regency I had placed into her hands before La Rochelle, her face darkened, her fists clenched, her stance froze, _and then, I knew. _

She didn't want me to get better.

I can't even be sure she wanted me to live at all.

I remembered her turning towards me with a radiant smile.

I forgot how fast her smiled used to crumble when she realised I wasn't my brother.

I remembered her, embracing both Gaston and me.

I forgot how fast she pushed me away, the very minute father left the room.

I remembered my hopes, I fear, but I forgot they had never been fulfilled.

_Not for one day, not for one minute. _

Never alone, always lonely.

_Hated by my own family. _

I swear I saw, as I closed my eyes in despair, Richelieu's face, chin up, eyes cold, that look of _“I told you so”_ upon his face again, and I summoned the Council with rage and shame inside my heart.

Here I am, sitting in my high throne, sweeping a bitter gaze across the circle of useless faces in front of me, and though I only left six months ago, they all look like _strangers _by now.

Well, truth be told, I'm not used to their voices anymore. Since when has Armand been the only one I listen to?

Forever it seems. _Three years at most. _

I swore to myself I would work, and not miss him, but really, is it my fault if his wits are worth ten of those leeches’ brains?

A thin veil of snow has graced the gardens this morning, hardly enough to cover the alleys, just a brush of white to brighten up the trees. My head feels heavy, my chest is still sore, but all in all, I am alive.

_Alive and bored._

  
  
I distractedly listen to my Ministers as each one, in turn, vomits praise upon my boots, raising to the Heavens my strength and wisdom. La Vieuxville buttoned his jacket wrong, Damn, how_ old_ is that man? Why am I keeping those slugs in my Council? They haven't got anything done in years. I growl, exasperated, searching for red again, and scolding myself for it.

He stayed down there, _you let him go._

Stop missing him, there's work to do.

I demand silence with a gesture of my hand, but while I have myself poured some wine, Mother stands up, _oh, Bloody Hell_, and starts explaining everything she has accomplished in my absence.

  


“Order has been restored among the less devoted of His Majesty's entourage...”

Oh yes, your typical way to rule the country, _wait, let me guess. _

Madame Something has complimented your hair and has gained a pension, while Mister Whatshisname has disrespected your parrot, and lost three ranks in the Court table.

“The Count of Bourbriac” she claims, “ has been denied the charge of Intendant of the House of His Highness d'Orléans...”

_I knew it. _

Is that all that's been done in six months? _Oh, wonderful work, Mother. _

Moving pawns upon your own chessboard, changing names and places around the gigantic banquet hall your life is, really, _France is so thankful_. There is work to be done, real work, _Heavens' sake! _What was in Armand's last report already? Riots in Languedoc, Huguenots raising funds in the South... we discussed it in Aytré, was it so long ago?

We discussed it, I am sure, he even took a few notes.

Not that much, compared to his usual, because it was shortly after Guiton, and at the time, he was desperately trying to avoid my eyes.

My skin shivers in protest, begging for him in raw hunger, and before I know it, I search for red again, _come on, focus. _

“The Duchess of Brissac has been seen several times in great discussion with Madame de Riancourt those days.” Mother keeps on, disgustingly self-confident. “Let's not forget Madame de Riancourt's late husband was Protestant...”

_Boring. _

How helplessly, unbearably _boring_. Mother is incapable of any kind of political vision. She doesn't have a single clue of what State is, of what France could be. She doesn't care about trade roads, colonies, armies, and fleets. She'd venerate every Spanish she meets just because they're more Catholic than we are, and she couldn't care less about the Habsburgs. No matter how shameful and unbecoming the thought is, the evidence is slapping me in the face: my own mother is irredeemably dumb.

God, those riots, the Huguenots, what did we say about it, before sickness, so long ago?

“We also have decided to redecorate the Evening Salon of the East Wing...”

Ah, I remember now.

We agreed upon having Condé fight the Huguenots back into place. That man is craving war with every rising sun, better give him one that fits my purposes before he comes up with the idea of marching on Paris. I'll send La Valette straight to his lands to carry my order. He could stop at La Rochelle on his way back, give Richelieu some support. Those two are friends, I think.

Buckingham will no doubt come back with another fleet.

I hope Armand's walls will stand the strain.

  
Both kind of walls.

The ones outside, of wood and stone.

The ones inside, of madness and resolve.

“The Celebrations of Easter will be moved from the Tuileries to the Louvre for -

“What is the news of La Rochelle?”

Every face turns up to me, and I see Mother slowly realise I haven't been listening to a word she said. Her face crumbles and her ample cheeks start to quiver, a soft rattle of jewellery following the cadenza, _oh for God's sake, would you for once spare me the drama?_

As if I didn't have enough of that on my plate already.

I snap my fingers, and she sits down. After a short awkward silence, La Vieuxville pulls a cardboard folder out of his case and hands it to me with a bow.

“The first of those was only two days behind Your Majesty Himself.” The old man explains. “And they have been continuously delivered to the Council every four days since.”

I open the folder and pick up three envelopes. The seals have all been broken. The former Queen Regent, of course, has taken the initiative of opening and reading all of those reports, without telling me a word of it.

  
  
To avoid _worrying me away from recovery_ no doubt.

I slide one letter out of its envelope and smile at the first lines.

_It's coded. _

It's a simple code, based on numbers and a bible. A child could learn it with the right reference, but without the keys, it'll remain gibberish to anyone. Only three people know of this code. Armand, Joseph, and me.

He knew Mother would open the letters first.

_Clever Armand, he always knows. _

I pick up the second and third letter, all coded just the same. I have a low snicker picturing my idiotic Mother and her suite trying to decipher those unstructured lines of numbers and words.

“Very well.” I nod, getting up. “if there is nothing else than _regular affairs of the Court _to be brought to my attention, the Council is dismissed.”

Mother, red-faced and heaving, grabs her brocade fan and starts agitating it under her nose. I walk to the door, persuaded I'll be granted silence at last, but I haven't made three steps when her voice, tense with fury, makes me spin around in a second.

“The Cardinal obviously doesn't see fit to share his thoughts with His Majesty's Council, or his family just the same.” She rumbles. “Seeing how close to death this man's relentless obsession has recently pushed our King, I only see this secrecy as malevolence.”

I narrow my eyes at her and almost let out a sharp order for her to shut up, but as I accidentally meet my other Minister's gazes, I realise by their solemn nods that _they all think the same. _

_  
They all think the same._

_God. _

Moving paws, changing names.

Fool that I am, _that_'s what she has been doing for six months.

  
_The Florentian tyrant, born on a bed of intrigue. _

In all that time away from the Louvre, I have given her the freedom she needed to make sure everyone around me is on her side, from my chamber valets to my very Council. If there is one thing this dull-witted woman has _mastered_, it's Court manipulation.

This is the palace, this is Paris. My own City and my own walls.

But I could bet my crown I won't find one courtier here my Mother hasn't bribed or cajoled, while all the men I trust are facing the winds of La Rochelle as we speak.

My own Palace, my own Council, but nevertheless, I'm on my own.

  
_I'm on my own. _

My knees almost buckle, and I bite my tongue to whip me up.

“We are at war, Madame,” I speak as softly as I can. “The Cardinal is taking every precaution concerning the safety of our military strategies, _as per my instructions_.”

“Are you sure?” she spits, defiant, and my hands clench around Richelieu's letters in a shrieking lament of paper.

I grit my teeth, breathe in, breathe out, but she quickly adds, sneering and high-pitched, far too happy to have all the attention,

“Didn't Your Majesty himself claimed to be aware of how cunning, how untrustworthy Richelieu is? I remember the doubts you _very enthusiastically_ voiced, as I foolishly asked you to place him in His Council four years ago. The words you used, back then, _mio Dio_, were so foul my heart broke in two! What happened, I wonder? Has he changed so much, turning from... His Majesty's own words, _'a sly beast'_ to an _angelic figure_ all of a sudden? Could it be-”

“Madame, this is **_enough_**.”

I almost yell, and I hate it.

Though all men jump in fear and lower their heads, she seems unimpressed, and I feel a surge of dread crawling up my spine.

  
Give me cannons, give me armies, give me warships and city walls. All those battles I can fight, all those forces I can defeat. But her filthy games of courtyard plots and false-bottomed words leave me breathless and disoriented.

Her face changes back to soft fondness, and I have no idea why. _God, what is happening?_

_“_I don't blame you, _mio figlio_!” She coos, standing up and walking to me in swaying steps. “Too much time spent with this unholy man would have anyone caught under his spell. I know, I know, I've been there myself! Sharing too much of your heart with a snake whose every breath is a lie eventually pushes reality itself out of sight, even for the best of us.”

I gulp around a dry lump in my throat, as she takes me in her arms, squeezing twice and letting go.

There was a whisper in my head, ever-watching and clear, warning me her love had always been a lie. There was a whisper in my heart, lucid and wise, telling me none of her tears were ever shed without a purpose.

But I knew that voice, and it felt so far away.

Beneath angry skies and frozen winds.

_‘My son.‘ she said. ‘My beloved Louis.’_

And I wanted to believe.

I want to push her away, I want to shout until she cries, I want to destroy her name and erase her from my sight, but _she's my own mother for God's sake_, and I recognise that feeling from ages ago.

She used to laugh at the slightest of my shy, stuttering sentences, waving away all my demands. She used to parade around the Palace as the Goddess of all things, followed everywhere by her Florentian filth. She used to sneer at my anger, locking me away with useless courtiers and their card games, as far from any knowledge or decision that I could be. She organised my helplessness and took pleasure in mocking it.

“Now, that's enough nonsense, my son” she used to say, waving me away like a fly. “Why don't you hop outside and hunt some birds?”

I was King in my own walls, but I was nothing to my country.

She kept me a prisoner of my own ignorance, distracted, _entertained,_ but never consulted.

She took everything that was rightfully mine, and she did it so well, that on this fateful day of the Etats Génraux, even _Richelieu_ spoke for her alone.

It took years of agony to find the strength to cut myself free, to shoot her Concini down.

_God, how many times will I have to do this all over again? _

I watch her fake smile covered in rouge for a while, then look around the Council room. She planned this. She has been planning this for months.

I've feared, deep inside, that someday it would happen.

Now I see it unfold right in front of me like a gruesome comedy.

  
Mother has reclaimed power in my absence, and she set her eyes on destroying _Armand. _

Though dumb and narrow-eyed, she still picked up the signs and eventually understood she's been a ladder, not a refuge.

_A means, never an end._

She has seen, just like everyone else, Armand working his health away to earn my trust, moved by a devotion that seemed beyond limits. She has witnessed for sure the victories, the reforms, the treasury, the conquests, and though she might never have understood half of their meaning, she recognised delight upon my face better than anyone.

Once Armand had climbed up to where he wanted to be, right at my side, unquestioned, unparalleled, he slowly but decidedly stopped playing the lute in the Queen Mother's chambers.

He very naturally cut off all of his ties to her.

_He betrayed her. _

Just like he betrayed countless souls upon his way to my side, and like he'll surely betray many more to come.

Though she practically invented this vicious game he played her with, using it to her advantage for so many years, she couldn’t bear to lose by her own rules.

I expected her to complain about Armand for a while of course, but I thought she'd drop the subject eventually and keep playing that game of hers, choosing another young, ambitious nobody, and moving on.

It seems I underestimated how resentful she is.

_And how in love she was. _

She kisses my hand in reverence, her voice a mockery of tenderness, as she goes on, ferocious,

“I thought being witness to all the people he betrayed to earn power and influence would have been enough of a warning for His Majesty, but it would seem the devil has found a way into His mind somehow, and you know, my dear, how _a mother always worries_.”

_God, she wants him dead, alright. _

Is it so hard to understand? Even if the thought of it makes me gag in disgust, she did have him in her bed. She touched his smooth white skin, heard his soft, heated cries. She had him pinned under her weight and has been foolish enough to believe his words.

_Is it so hard to understand? _

For a dreadful second, I see myself, abandoned and frustrated, alone in my cold bed, watching Armand look elsewhere for a better embodiment of his purpose. I sense agony rising in my heart like a storm in the summertime, breaking through quiet skies, destroying everything.

**_No._** No, I couldn't bear it. _Never._

He's mine, and mine alone.

If he ever dares to look any other way I'll have him quartered, and let the crowd play with his head. 

I'll have him exiled if not shot down. I'll have him bleed on my own boots, I'll have -

I gaze into my mother's eyes, reading that exact same fury, that exact same heartbreak.

_Oh, dear God, she wants him dead._

_Is it so hard to understand?_

I want to speak, I know I should, but I only cough, and she immediately tells me to rest and come back when the damages done by Richelieu's stubbornness are long gone.

“Now that His Majesty had the wisdom to send the _sly beast_ away on that wretched seawall,” she adds in a lighter tone, “I am sure he will eventually see the truth, and break the spell the demon has cast upon his heart.”

I had armies surrendering to my name, I had cities yielding to my banner. I fought cannons and muskets alike, defeating them with rage and wits.

I vanquished Spain, I crushed the Grands.

I defeated the Pope.

  
I mastered _him_.

And despite it all, though I wish for anger, though I wish for outrage, the only thing left alive in my guts as I walk out the council room is a throbbing, distant form of terror.

Marie de Medici wants Armand dead, and for God's sake, _she's my own mother. _

*** 

> 'To the Generalissime Cardinal de Richelieu,
> 
> 'You will be pleased to learn I have made a full recovery, and have fully assumed my functions once more. This letter will be delivered to you by Cardinal La Valette, on his way to Guyenne to charge the Prince of Condé to tame the Huguenot's disrupting behaviour while my army is otherwise occupied, just as we discussed.
> 
> 'I have allowed His Eminence La Valette to remain in La Rochelle afterwards, and offer you whatever advice you might require.
> 
> 'I have received and deciphered your three previous letters.

I put down my quill, push away the book and table I use for coding, and let out a heavy sigh. I’d appreciate being alone in my office at last much more without that crippling pain in my chest. But then again, the pain comes back every night, and nightfall comes barely after lunch those days.

  
Growling, I pick up the seven sheets of translation from Armand's very meticulous, very exhaustive reports. Nothing is amiss, and that is a good sign.

But most of them are in Joseph's handwriting, which isn't good at all.

Informants in England confirm Buckingham is gathering another fleet by himself, using the same kind of mercenaries, most likely even less well paid than the previous ones. _Mh_. The chances of them being a real threat to the strengthened siege force are thin. Besides, Richelieu has Toiras, Treville, Schomberg, Bassompierre, Marillac and soon La Valette around him. They are the best soldiers France could give.

God, I wish I was down there. I would be on my way back, I swear I would, but I can't give Regency back to Mother now. One more month in power and she'd _redecorate_ my name out of the family tree.

I pick up the quill, gather the book and table of numbers. 

> 'My instructions follow. Keep the Isle of Ré regiment well-fed and warm, and don't let the Crown's good care forget the builders and workers in food and wood distribution. They are just as useful as soldiers. Maintain the weekly Council I had with the Marshals and Generals, and include Treville in it. Despite his lower officer rank, I believe he has sufficient knowledge of siege matters. Send me a written report of every session.

I still write a few more details, more to show that I remembered than to remind him of them. I never needed to remind him of anything. What I think of, he writes down, what I forget, he remembers.

I sigh again and wince at the painful throb in my lungs. I take a look at my desk, where Citoy's evening grog is getting cold. I cringe in repulsion and stand up to fetch a bottle of Bourgogne in my cupboard. I sit back, pop the bottle open and drown the grog in wine before I gulp it down.   
_  
Better, though a waste of decent wine._

Leaning back in my chair, I look up at the ceiling, watching dim shadows of firelight dancing smoothly on the paintings there.

I ran away from death itself to find a palace filled with my mother's stench. She prepared the whole place to be the echo of her will, and her will is for me to have my Minister shot down.  
For God’s sake, this man is the only one who can give France the future I dreamed for Her, this man is the only one who can warm up my desperate soul.

Will I ever be allowed to rest?

Was it too capricious to ask, Dear Lord, for the love of my own kin?

I blindly pick up the original reports, lifting them to my eyes, and searching for his signatures for the tenth time tonight. Next to Joseph's initials, he wrote, uncoded, _'Armand Cardinal de Richelieu,'_ and neatly thickened the first name every time.

Every time.

He wants me to call him that way.

  
_Armand. _

I rub my eyes with my free hand, fighting a fit of mirthless laughter. I intended to work, not to miss him, but my skin is howling, and I'm on my own.

Down in La Rochelle, besides the substantial odds that I might lose a French city to England, Armand might end up broken even in victory, torn and shattered by madness to the point where he'll be worthless as a Minister, and certainly unwilling to let me touch him forevermore.  
Here in the Louvre, Mother is going to wage her filthy kind of war upon my head, and I hate to admit I'm scared to face this nightmare without Richelieu's sound advice. I am trapped here in a battle I can't control, between medicines and useless men. Between thick air and icy skin.

_When did I close my eyes? God, I am so tired._

Scattered flashes of memories pass in the dark of my own mind, my lonely carnival of dreams.   
  
Armand's eyes, wide and subdued, gently lowered on my command.

The distant sound of his voice, '_Your Majesty, such pleasure._”

The thin fabric of his nightshirt. The way it brushed against his thighs.

His hands around my heart, _his tongue around my cock. _

Was that moan mine?

_Oh, for God's sake. _

All my life without a clue, I’ve barely touched the warmth of him, and this woman who gave birth to me, she wants him dead in return.

I frown at my quill and bible. Should I warn Armand of my mother’s plans?

Knowing him, he might already know. I saw his hawk Joseph still sliding notes into his sleeve, even there in this dark corner of Aytré’s reception room, four hundred miles southeast of Paris. Richelieu has spies in every province, every corporation, every layer of this bloody society, and I’m not even counting Joseph’s monks or his secret ambassadors abroad.

But what if he doesn’t? He’d want to know. I doubt there is much he can do, stuck in La Rochelle between the sea and city walls, but if there is one thing to be done, only he can think of it.

Wait, is he even in a state where he could stand the news? The reports were in Joseph’s handwriting, after all. For all I know, one more worry could send him into a fit of fever, or delirium, and he cannot break before the city does.

I shake my head, hiss in frustration, and pick up my quill to code again.

Very well, I’ll just hint at it. Something light, not too alarming. He needs to know, not to panic.

> 'The Queen Mother has manifested a keen interest for your state of mind. She has mentioned you quite a few times in my presence, in ways that leave no doubt upon the fact that you occupy most of her thoughts.

Right. That should suffice. He is clever, more than I’ll ever be. He’ll understand.

I’ll add something reassuring, maybe. I don’t want him crumbling in exhaustion in front of Buckingham’s ships.

> ‘It is my will that you continue to serve the interests of the Crown as efficiently as ever. To achieve this, you are required to find a balance between the necessities of war and your own health.

I freeze, my quill suspended in mid-air.

_I should be down there_. I’d just order him to sleep, my face into his hair. It worked last time.

_“Your Majesty” he cried._

His eyes glassy and blurred, his hips against my own.

I swore to myself I would just work, and not miss him. _Fool that I am._

My skin won't stop howling for red.

My quill flies to the inkpot and back. Words, numbers. One last line. _Something nice. _

> 'I will not tolerate the loss of your service.
> 
> 'I expect your next report in three days.

Mh. Passable.

I sign, then. Uncoded, why bother.

My hands shake with the sheer need to thicken my own first name for a whole minute before I growl in rage, fold the paper twice and seal the letter shut.

_Louis- _my mind craves for.

But what could he love in me, if not his King?

If I sleep tonight with that letter inside my shirt, pressed against my skin until morning, it's for safety, and nothing more. I cannot tell if he'll feel it, I'm not sure he'll understand. I'm not even aware of exactly what I want to say by that, I only trust his wits, that's all, and the calling of both our skins.

_Armand, after all, he always knows. _


	8. April 16th 1628, Sainte Chapelle, Ile-de-la-Cité, Paris.

The Mass has lasted for two whole hours, and I thought it would be easier not to think of him there.

Mostly because of the music. I always loved Church music, and truly, the choir of the Sainte Chapelle is the best I ever heard. A core of young boys, surrounded by a magnificent ensemble of male voices, supported the countertenor standing up front. Their chants rose up to the ceiling, spiralling into the light of stained glass, glorifying the deeds of my bloodline, and that felt almost surreal to me.

Everywhere in the chapel, colour sang just as loud as men, enhanced by gold and velvet, painted in delicate patterns of flowers and animals from the tiled floor to the highest keystones. Furtive rainbows danced in the air as if God Himself had painted those two hours with brushstrokes of His own light. 

This is the Church of Saint Louis, father of all virtue, and as the choir sang, I almost felt his blood pumping in my veins. I remembered my father sitting on the chair that is now meant for me alone, bathed in fleeting hues, smiling in delight at the thundering echoes of the Mass.

“They’ll sing for you one day, for sure!” he once said to me. “But never forget to deserve it.”

Have I? _Have I? _

Is France greater than before my crowning day? Are my people safer, are my borders stronger? Is my Kingdom fighting the darkness of ancient times, or crumbling down further in?

Everything will be answered, I fear, by the wild winds of La Rochelle.

There will be no grandeur, no pride, no nation, no State, without that man on that seawall.

The Mass has lasted for two whole hours, and I thought, _I swear I thought_ it would be easier not to think of him there because the Masses Richelieu gave himself could be counted on my bloody fingers. I barely managed to force him into a nave for my sister’s wedding or a Te Deum for Montpellier. Most of the time, he cannot even bear to recite his morning prayers before he starts unrolling maps and dictating letters.

He has always been absolutely Minister and hardly _Cardinal _at all.

  
But every word sung by that choir reminded me of my vision, and who exactly devoted his life to that dream of mine. I tried, I really tried, but before I could focus anywhere else, I found my eyes once more looking for that one red.

If they found it, it was in the robes of another Cardinal, Bérulle, as he spoke the last words of his Mass, and this man is everything Armand isn't. He is fat, dark-haired, has the subtlety of a bull, has never written anything but bland sermons, and has never been seen outside of a Church.

As the ceremony ended, I felt a small hand circling around my arm and looked down at my wife as if she was a complete stranger again. Swallowing my unease with a mechanical smile, I stood up, helped her out of her chair, turned towards the altar and signed myself.

Anne did the same, and of course so did Mother, who ran to the Cardinal de Bérulle to congratulate him upon his very conservative, very tasteless sermon, no doubt gathering a few more blessings for herself in the process. I believe in Christ with all my heart, I swear, but her look upon the pieta above the altar sickens me. Because it's overdone, because it reeks of guilt, because it's all for show.

I spin around and lead Anne to the gates, for I already hear the people chanting outside, and I am due for alms.

Seeing me passing in front of her and Bérulle without a look, Mother's face reddens in anger again, and she clears her throat _insanely loud_, drawing back my attention to the man of the Church with an impatient move of her fan.

“Won't His Majesty pay his respects to the Cardinal?” She coos, and I repress a shiver.

I have the slightest nod for Bérulle. I have no quarrel against this man, but frankly, he is of no use to me. His ideas are dull, his life inconsequential. He isn't half as scandalous as Richelieu might be, no doubt, but certainly not half as brilliant either. I think Armand used his influence for a while before he pushed him out of his plate with a sigh and a two-lined note.

I resolutely walk away, and Mother, trotting to my side, has the nerve to hiss,

“I am beginning to believe my son favours snakes and poison plants over good Christian souls.”

I exhale between clenched teeth. Answering would just let her prattle on, and really, I don't have time for this.

For two months, I have been desperately trying to distract her from spitting on Richelieu's name every time she crossed my path. I encouraged her to find a hobby, buy a new dress, eat more figs, more meringue. I even drew her attention to lower Court intrigues she didn't notice, to keep her narrow mind occupied for a while.

But she kept on insulting him with every word that came out of her mouth, with such relentless obscenity it even scared Anne away from her boudoir. According to the tide of Mother's mood, the day of the week or the time of the day, the Cardinal successively turned from a Judas to a dragon, a murderer, a common thief or the embodiment of Satan. Her nonsense grew as delirious as the rumours of La Rochelle, without the excuse of besiegement and fear. She has been speaking, writing and crying about nothing else all that time, and those she doesn't bore to tears, she unites to her cause. This might be the worst of it all.

I once thought she would let go eventually, set her sights on another man, and simply move on. She has never been able to focus on anything for more than a week before.

It seems I underestimated how resentful she is.

_And how in love she was. _

I have no idea what to do with the stubborn, dumb horse my mother has become. Every time she opens her mouth, I feel my heart torn between the need to have her crushed to silence for good, and my longing for the ghost of a mother she has never been, and truth be told, she barely shuts her mouth all day.

I want to push her away, I want to shout until she cries, I want to destroy her name and erase her from my sight, but _she's my own mother, for God's sake_.

I didn't write much to Armand about it. He has enough to worry about.

His own reports, though always flawless and exhaustive, written in restrained, carefully chosen words, speak well enough about the nightmare La Rochelle is turning into.

  
Fifteen thousand dead within the city walls were counted last week, and if springtime has brought back good health and enthusiasm to the troops, La Rochelle grows more desolate every day. The wind carries different sorts of stenches from the city every day, and soldiers are kept awake by sudden cries of despair at night. Guiton still refuses the slightest gesture, despite five emissaries and one painful, laborious rewriting of the treaty.

A pair of men with the same willpower, and a wall to set them apart.

Fate needed no more. _La Rochelle is a graveyard. _

I didn't write much to Armand, because though the walls and the forts are perfectly fine, I am sure, what is crumbling to dust, I fear, is the people of La Rochelle _and Richelieu's own sanity._

Since the reports I keep getting from Richelieu, some of them entirely in Joseph's handwriting, tell me nothing about his own health, I tried to obtain news by asking a few people in La Rochelle. All I got, may it be from my officers or Joseph himself, was unbearably vague. 'His Eminence is tired' was all I could yank out from them. _Tired. For God's sake. _

Worry is steadily turning into torture, and a growing part of my guts pushes me to ride southeast and snatch Armand away from this nightmare before he burns out like a candle under the nasty winds of La Rochelle.

I twisted his skin, I drew his blood, I kissed his mouth, and he's mine now.

_He's mine. _

I am Louis the Thirteenth, I am King of France, and I am so by divine right. No one has the right to _damage my property. _

The gates of the chapel open wide, the radiant April sun shines upon us, and all over the forecourt, a tight crowd starts yelling in joy.

I smile, even though I am blinded by the sun and barely see a face. I smile, and I extend my arm to my right. I realise too late that Armand is not there to hand me the bag of coins for my alms anymore. There is only my wife, looking up at me with dim confusion. I cough and turn my gesture into a small pat on her arm.

I swore to myself I would just work.

I try not to miss him, to keep my eyes from searching for red.

I try not to need him, but every day I fail some more, and I hate him, and I curse him, and I spurn him, _and I want him. _

_I only wished for purer love, Dear God, but you made me so lonely. _

Anne gives the alms, and I take a small bouquet of wildflowers handed to me by a young boy held by his mother.

“His name is Louis.” the mother says in a bow.

_Half of France's name is _– my bitter mind replies, but I only smile and order bread to be given to the boy. I salute an old soldier leaning on a crutch, a family of peasants from Nancy. A few faces, a few hands, and I am pushed in my carriage by wary Musketeers.

As the door closes upon Anne and me, she tells me something about the people of France being proud of their King, but I barely reply. I just sigh and rub my face in my hands again.

I thought I saw him in the crowd once more, but it was a woman in a dress that's only vaguely red. My eyes are tired, my mind is blurred, and the nightmares are getting worse.

Three nights never pass anymore without me waking up shrieking, gripping the sheets in trembling hands, the picture of Armand's dried-up body still vivid in my mind. His dried-up body if there is a body at all, as I often dream they just point at the sea for me, and tell me the cannonballs or musket fire didn't leave a scrap of flesh to bury.

It takes more and more time to catch my breath, then, and wrap myself in the fading memory of his lips against my cheek. Will I ever be allowed to rest? Will I be granted one day of peace?

Everything will be answered, I fear, by the wild winds of La Rochelle.

  
There will be no grandeur, no pride, no nation, no State, without that man on that seawall.


	9. June 8th 1628, Main Hall, The Louvre, Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning : depiction of death (women and children)

I'd recognise the footsteps of a Musketeer a hundred yards away.

I stop dead in my steps and turn around, gasping as the limping silhouette of Captain Treville emerges from the darkness of the main hall, down the stairs below my feet.

Midnight has been marked by the distant bells of Notre Dame long ago, and I was walking that sad walk again, from the Queen's apartments back to my own, just like every night.

The child Anne promised me still won't come, and my hopes are steadily diminishing, but there is a law for every inch of my skin, and a duty for every hour of my day.

I try, I swear I try not to think of _him_ too much as I lay down in those cold, _cold _sheets, but it's slipping out of my control. I fight it, with all my heart, for the last scrap of respect I have for Anne, but I don't think she even wants me to. She only waits for my mind to snap back into the memories of his skin, because, I suppose, only then I am of any good to her. Besides, it always ends the same pathetic way, with me thrusting deep into her, lost in flashes of his burning skin, drowned in echoes of his cries, biting the sheets above her shoulder to stop me from moaning his very name.

I swore to myself I would just work. But there is no control, no bargain, _no lesser sin. _

She knows I am sure, it isn't her I'm thinking of, but as long as she has no idea _who_, I don't care. Let her think I have mistresses of my own, just like my father used to have.

If she only knew.

  
I wanted to reign free from the chains of scandal my father dragged behind his feet, and yet I only fell into a deeper, much darker pit eventually. May God shield my wife from the true colour of my sin forevermore.

I bite on a nasty shiver, taking a few steps towards the balcony.

“Captain Treville?” I breathe.

_God, it's really him._

He's slowly climbing up the stairs, wincing at every step, his strong, friendly face washed out by pain and exhaustion. I snatch a candelabra out of my valet's hand and run towards him, meeting him halfway down the stairs and offering my arm as support.

  
I knew it. _Something dreadful happened._

I knew it because I haven't received any of Armand's reports in two weeks.

It's the first time the steady flow of his letters has been interrupted since this absurd war has begun. Worry turned into torture, and torture came to stay. I haven't slept in days, waiting for the envelopes that wouldn’t come, and now Treville comes back wounded, I knew it, _I knew it._

_I should have been down there, I should - _

“Captain, what happened to you? Is La Rochelle...?”

Treville raises a reassuring hand before I can finish my panicked sentence.

“The siege force is just fine, Your Majesty.” He quietly states. “Only I have been wounded.”

I huff a short sigh of relief, but still try to sort through a storm of questions, gazing distractedly at the small carriage outside in the gardens, no doubt the one that brought him here straight from the siege. His boots are still plastered with dried mud, and his coat smells of blood and gunpowder. There's sweat on his forehead, and God, I’ve never seen his hands _shake _before.

The Captain looks like he wants to talk, but he suddenly grips his side in a groan of pain, and his knees buckle for a second.

I snap my fingers at the valets, order them to fetch Citoys, and bark for wine and a hot meal. Treville protests, I hiss him to silence. I help him to my apartments and lie him down on my own bed despite his growing gasps of refusal. I take off his boots, cloak, and doublet, only to curse in shock at a terrifying, badly bandaged gash below his ribcage.

“It's my fault!” Treville pleads before I shout in anger. “The wound was healing just fine, and I meant to return to Paris slowly, but Richelieu gave me a letter to deliver to your own hands, and I thought there wasn't any time to lose. I rode full speed straight to the Louvre, and I fear the journey has reopened the cut.”

With that, he searches inside his doublet beside him on the bed and pulls out a thick sealed envelope, oh for God's sake, _stained with his blood. _

He hands it to me, biting his lips at the state of the letter.

“My apologies for the...”

“Shut up, Officer,” I growl.

I take the letter, clasp it between my teeth to keep my hands free and serve him wine first. He takes the cup with trembling hands, and I walk to my desk to grab my letter opener.

I want to rip that envelope open more than anything, but a good soldier of France is bleeding on my bed, and I know where my duty lies. I use the letter opener to cut out his filthy bandage instead and peel the linen strips away from the wound one by one.

After all, he said the siege force was fine.

If anything had happened to Armand, he surely would have told me already. The rest can wait, _the rest can wait._

By the time Citoys arrives, the gash is clean and covered with a folded pillowcase of mine, and I take the letter back into my hands.

I let the physician take care of him, open wounds being definitely more within his art than lung infection. A thick broth is brought to Treville shortly after, with brown bread and fresh butter. By the way the good man devours the food, I guess he is likely to have ridden straight from La Rochelle without a pause for rest or nourishment.

I sigh, rolling my eyes. _Musketeers._

I shouldn't blame them. I wanted them so_. I made them so. _

When we are left alone once more, I pour wine for both of us, push a wide armchair close to the bed and let myself fall into it. I take two large gulps and rip the envelope open at last.

Two sheets. Uncoded.

_Oh, so he does trust Treville by now. _

> _'To His Majesty King of France._
> 
> _Buckingham has manifested himself on Monday the 30th, just as Joseph's informants had planned. I will purposefully refrain from using the word “attack” because, in fact, there has been none. _
> 
> _Though we were expecting lower-class ships and poorly-maintained mercenaries, 60 official warships from the British Royal Fleet were seen approaching our siege force at half past seven and stopped in their advance about five hundred yards from the seawall. It seems Buckingham's influence upon the English King is still very efficient. According to Joseph, the Duke himself wasn't on board. Charles most likely assigned the fleet to the Count of Denbigh. _
> 
> _The Count supposedly assessed our fighting force from afar, and to our general astonishment, decided to turn around after 12 hours without any form of combat. _
> 
> _Our informants suggest this fleet was meant as a show of support to the people of La Rochelle, but Denbigh was unwilling to risk damage to his King's float in an uncertain battle. _

_Hah. _So that's what the siege walls look like by now. Solid enough to scare off sixty warships. Twice as much as the first attack, bloody Hell, what have you built down there? The nine circles of hell itself?

> _Meanwhile, it seems a few Huguenot troops from Guyenne had been informed of the incoming English fleet and had planned a simultaneous assault. No harm came from the sea, but the Huguenots still decided to charge Fort Louys. _
> 
> _They have been thoroughly defeated in about three hours by the joint efforts of Marshal de Toiras, General Marillac and the Musketeer regiment. _

I take a pointed look at Treville over the rim of the sheets_, oh, that's how he got wounded. _

The Captain, no doubt thinking I'm asking him to leave, sets his plate aside and moves to sit up, but I point at the bed with a short grunt. He frowns in frustration but slips back into the pillows without a word.

> _In a very reckless move I did not approve beforehand, Captain Treville rode under heavy crossfire to take down the Huguenot officers in sword combat. He has been severely wounded and will be returning to Paris bearing this report._

I huff a small chuckle, glance at Treville's confused face, and quote the last sentence for him with a slight mimicry of Richelieu's stern voice. I smile, about to chastise him for what looks like dangerous, typical Musketeer show-off once more, but my smile freezes when I realise Treville isn't laughing at all. He looks, in fact, positively _furious_.

The Musketeer does sit up, his honest face twisted by pain and anger, and he hisses, nodding at the letter.

“What His Eminence _forgets_ to tell you, is that those Huguenots were a thousand at most, led by a brave officer and two lieutenants. They attacked Fort Louys, where the five thousand men of Toiras’ regiment were stationed, and charged the gates with muskets, arrows, and five cannons barely the size of a man's leg. They didn't stand a _chance_.”

It is my turn to frown. I urge Treville to go on.

“I begged Richelieu to show mercy” The Captain growls, his brow knitted in torment, “but he unleashed _Hell_ at those people, using our biggest cannons to crush foot soldiers to piles of broken flesh. He knew that from the towers of La Rochelle, the battle could be seen perfectly, and he wanted to break Guiton's courage despite England's show of support. He wanted to make a _statement_ once more by destroying those men to the last one.”

I bite my lips. I'm not surprised.

The war machine, _the show of force. _

He knows he cannot fail. Too much is at stake. The prestige of France, the trade roads, the treaties, the State. Our map of Europe.

The whole continent is watching La Rochelle, he knows it far too well.

If he loses this battle to the City, our dreams are done, and so is he.

He does what he must to give our vision a chance.

  
He does what is_ necessary. _

The siege has been going on for eight months now, and the city is dying. Richelieu must smell death and hear howls of sorrow just like anyone else, and to stop feeling the pain, to stop hearing the cries, to stop himself from crumbling into tears, he simply turned into the monster everyone already thinks he is.

There is no one there to stop his descent into madness by now, for I left him here with no one to obey.

_God, what have I done?_

“I thought that if I took out the Huguenot officers as prisoners, “ Treville goes on, “it might force their troops to retreat, and shorten the massacre. So I went down to the gates myself and challenged them. But they wouldn't let themselves be taken alive, terrified of Richelieu's interrogation rooms. I was forced to wound or kill them, and the retreat was never ordered. As I fell injured upon the corpses of the two lieutenants, Richelieu slaughtered their men, _French men I must remind Your Majesty_, to the very last.”

He falls silent, panting, his bright eyes lost in the mist of horrid memories, and I lay my hand on his shoulder. He starts, looks up at me in raw torment, and I have no idea what to say. I almost want to apologise, but what the Hell would it look like?

I can't cower away from the fact that everything happening down there is happening in my name. For my own purposes, for my beloved dream, and _on my very command. _

_'On this Earth' he said, 'I have only one Master.'_

This man is my servant. He is my property.

I won't apologise for my own _shadow in red. _

“Your service has been heroic, Captain.” I simply mutter. “Be assured that I will remember it.”

That isn't what he was expecting of me at all, and I read it quite clear upon his face, but he just purses his lips and sinks back into the bed with a sharp cry of pain. I wipe his brow with my own handkerchief and pull the covers over him.

He protests again, of course, but I see exhaustion creeping up his eyes in steady advance, and I know he won't be resisting anything for long.

With a heavy sigh, I go back to the letter.

> _I had hopes that this deplorable battle would be an incentive for Guiton to finally accept diplomacy. Unfortunately, the Mayor has still refused every attempt at negotiations, including the strategy I evoked in my last report, consisting of sending his own nephew we summoned from Orléans. The young man has even manifested the will to remain behind the city walls from now on, and share the fate of his uncle. _
> 
> _A most disappointing display of foolishness, no doubt a family trait. _

God, Richelieu must have been _raging _with hurt pride.

Two men on each side of a wall, each of them just as stubborn as the other.

Fate needed nothing more.

> _Both the British and the Huguenots' fruitless attempts still had one significant effect on Guiton's strategy. La Rochelle is starting to show signs of despair and has taken a few extreme measures._
> 
> _None of them, I reassure you, had any impact upon the way the siege plan is being carried on. In everything, the future of France must be our only purpose. _

My frown deepens at that last one. There's something strange in those deep, glorious words, lost in the middle of the coldest, most practical report a man could write.

As if he wasn't even writing for me, but for himself.

Trying to encourage himself._ To justify himself. _

_Oh, Hell, Armand, what **more** have you done?_

“What happened after the Huguenot attack?” I gingerly ask Treville, and by the way his tired eyes darken even further, I know my feeling is right.

Treville briefly rubs fatigue off his eyes and blinks at the report a few times.

“The letter doesn't mention anything?” he inquires in a distant voice.

“Nothing more than La Rochelle's 'extreme measures' and the way they left the siege force unmoved.” I sigh, shaking my head.

Treville bites his lips. _He's not surprised. _

Oh, _bloody Hell. _

“Now, Captain” I very cautiously ask. “What is the Cardinal _not telling me _again? “

Treville takes three deep breaths, each time flinching in pain, but eventually, he talks, his eyes fixed upon a detail of my coverlet.

“I didn't see any of it.” He says. “I was stuck in the infirmary of Fort D'Orléans. But my men visited me, and other wounded soldiers talked. Toiras came to tell me I was decommissioned to Paris and charged with this letter. They all told the same story.”

“Which was?” I press on.

The Captain sighs, fighting one of those shudders you have in the middle of a nightmare, and quietly explains, his hands clenching in troubled fists.

“Guiton obviously had hoped for the English ships to deliver food and supplies to the City. The fleet had three merchant boats with her, so it's likely to be the case. But as Denbigh turned around and fled, though Guiton remained steady in his fanatic faith, I suppose despair grew among his opponents inside the City and forced him to make more drastic moves. Richelieu thinks Guiton persuaded the boy he sent inside to stay with a glorious speech about Holy War and faith, but, well, the Cardinal has a tendency to think the whole world works like he does.”

I nod. So typical of him to think common people can be moved by the prospect of virtue alone. He even tried to bribe his own agents with the Prestige of France as the only reward. T_hat move only works for people like you and your demented monk, Armand._

He very often had to lower his sights to more _material_ means of retribution to get anything done.

“I believe that Guiton has kept the boy against his will to prevent him from telling Richelieu the true state of the City,” Treville adds. “I think La Rochelle is turning into a mass grave, and the smell rising from there upon the slightest warmth of sunlight, I swear, confirm my every word.”

I wince. War is a nightmare.

_Fate needed no more. _

“The next morning,” The captain breathes, looking up at me in a slow, pained move, “instead of sending the boy back, Guiton opened wide the City gates, and had armed men push every remaining woman and child outside the walls.”

I gasp, curse out loud, and crumple Richelieu's letter in my start.

For God's sake, where are we, Antique Rome? Weren’t we supposed to move France_ forward in time? _

I sigh, try to calm down, and gently gesture at the Musketeer to continue.

“The whole Officer Council wanted our own doors to open for them and let them pass.” Treville complies. “Richelieu agreed at first, but Joseph said Guiton was only doing that to allow the men inside the City walls to survive the siege for a longer. The damned priest was surely right. Guiton is obviously holding on to England's sympathy, and that maniacal _bastard_ will stop at nothing until the very last day.”

The Captain winces at his own language, shooting me an apologetic look. I shrug it away.

“The women and children screamed and begged and cried for hours.” He bravely goes on. “Not upon our doors, not at all. They wanted back in La Rochelle where their fathers and husbands were. And by the cries coming from the other side of the ramparts, we guessed many men inside wanted them back too.”

_Oh, dear God. _

I drop the report, my eyes lost on the feet of my nightstand, and nervously rub hands together.

“What's the point of making that siege last longer if the British, despite their demonstrations of support, won't even fire one cannonball upon the seawall?” I ask, helpless.

Treville lifts his hands above the covers, gesturing his indecision.

  
“Well...” He stammers. “Joseph spoke of another attack to be expected. His agents in London had told him Buckingham had stayed in England because he was negotiating something huge, about more than a hundred ships. Guiton must know that too, and that must be the promise he holds onto. The Capuchin said we needed to force the city into surrendering before that next attack because it would cause casualties up to several thousand among our ranks. Toiras swore every soldier around the City was ready to pay the price, but Richelieu said that after the last Huguenot attack, he wouldn't kill one more French soldier than he absolutely had to. It all came down to a hundred sick, scrawny women and children against thousands of our men, and they say Richelieu made a quick, very cold calculation of the number of families involved, and choose the _lesser evil to be committed_.”

Oh, God, **_no_**.

  
Heavens, this is unthinkable. They must be all dead as we speak. All of them, women, children of France my own people, what have I done?

  
  
Corpses so dry they don't even rot.

_Staring at you through dark, empty eyes. _

Armand, through layers or cold iron, deep inside the war machine he has become, I know, _I know he still feels so much. _

**_  
_**How letting them die will break him in two.

“Richelieu ordered our gates to remain closed to force Guiton to take back his women and children and feed them,” Treville whispers in the shaking ghost of a voice. “Guiton never did.”

Dead bodies found with scraps of shoes between their teeth.

“A few desperate men tried to escape from the city walls to bring food to their wives and children. All died in the process, some of them shot down from the inside. Two of our own men thought it merciful to shoot a bullet into the head of those who suffered the most. Richelieu had them demoted and punished.”

  
Children mummified in their own bedsheets.

“I left La Rochelle one week after they released the women and children, and most of them were already dead, stuck between our walls and the City's, petrified while scratching La Rochelle's gates with their nails. Only a handful was still screaming for Guiton to open the gates. I swear to God, Your Majesty, I'll never forget those sounds of- ”

By Treville's sudden silence, and the way his eyes widen in awe and sympathy, I realise I might be crying.

“Your Majesty?” He tries, but I raise a hand, shake my head, get up and walk to the window.

I quietly press my clenched fists upon the glass and rest my forehead against the flat, cold surface. Focus, breathe in, breathe out.

_I knew something dreadful had happened._

Children of France died upon barren lands, crushed by a war machine designed in my name. This battle is drenched in shameful murder, a whole city marked with torture.

Is it worth it? This map of Europe, this vision I had?

The Grandeur, the Victories, the Edicts, the Decrees?

  
_Is it worth those children's lives? _

I bloody well hope so, for if it is not, then I shall fear the Judgement Day. On that fateful hour of mine, I’ll be staring down the gates of Hell.

Hell’s own fire_. I already know the taste of it, after all._

I squeeze my eyes shut, quickly wipe salt water off my face, and turn back to my bed. I want to tell Treville not to worry, but as I walk closer, I realise he's asleep, and I let out a furtive smile before I sit back in that chair. Looking around for my wine, I find the letter I dropped next to my cup, and recall I finished neither of them.

I pick them both up, drinking one, reading the other.

> _The state of the siege force is to be considered stable. A minor surge of dysentery has damaged the health of the regiment of Fort Marie, but the soldiers have been duly isolated and entrusted to the care of physicians Burgeau and Lemercier. _

I'm startled by my own dark snicker. Dysentery. Senseless, and yet very logical for His Eminence to jump from the foulest of nightmares to a _minor surge of dysentery_. How cold must he be, how lost in the distance, for him to be oblivious to the absurdity of his own writing.

> _Concerning the matters of the Court, I can but suggest Your Majesty turn his attention to the Duchess of Chevreuse, for I fear much of the troublesome issues rising in the Louvre are likely to be her doing. Besides her influence upon Her Highness the Queen Mother, I above all recommend her influence upon Queen Anne to be treated with acute wariness. _
> 
> _My very assiduous letters to the Queen Mother staying unanswered may be one thing, but I still believe Her Majesty Queen Anne's own writing to be of much greater consequence. _

What? What are you trying to tell me?

What do you know, you bloody devil? What is Anne writing, and to whom? She must be spilling secrets to her Spanish brother no doubt. I growl in repressed fury, emptying the bottle in my glass.

  
Very well. If I can still find one man to be trusted in this cursed palace, I'll have him placed in Anne's entourage. Following Richelieu's advice has never been wrong so far. Even down there in hell, stuck between the sea and city ramparts, the clever beast always knows what he is doing.

_God, I wish he was here. _

I have a saddened look for the letter.

I swore to myself I would just work.

> _'I once more assure Your Majesty of my continued service, for He is well aware how ardently I'd rather die than to ever be a reason for Your Majesty’s displeasure._
> 
> _'Please expect the next report in four days, without delay this time._
> 
> _'Armand Cardinal de Richelieu. _

I give a soft smile. He chose his words. He always does.

'_I'd rather die than to ever be a reason for Your Majesty’s displeasure.'_

I read that again, in his voice, the one he has when he's pressed against my ear, when he's pinned into my sheets. I close my eyes, wrapped in the warmest of shivers. When I open them again, I watch the signature, notice the thickened first name once more, and stroke it once or twice with my thumb.

I fold the letter twice, hide it in my nightshirt.

_I'll answer tomorrow._

  
  
I gulp my last glass down, pick up a blanket Treville isn't using, rest my legs next to his upon the bed, and throw the blanket over myself. 

I fall asleep lulled by the Captain's light snoring, the night shunting my dreams around from the cries of La Rochelle to the smile of my red beast.


	10. August the 29th 1628, Fort Louys, Estuary of La Rochelle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning: abuse, violence

It was only a matter of time before I rode back to La Rochelle. I knew it, deep inside, _I knew it all along. _

The only thing that kept me in the Louvre was the stench of Mother's plans, as an ancient law forced me to give the Regency back to her the moment I rode to war. Fortunately, fate provided me with the safeguard I needed to build around her, to keep her from corrupting the Louvre any further.

This safeguard was called Treville. He knew he was the only man left in Paris I could trust, and by a miracle I still cannot comprehend, he recovered amazingly fast and rushed to the Louvre to ask for my orders the very minute he could stand on his own.

  
I placed him in my Council immediately. He didn't like it, uneasy as he is with politics and Court, but after only three minutes of my mother's speech did he understand without a doubt why exactly I put him there, and bravely stood our ground.

While I taught Treville the basics of Court intrigue, I placed Schomberg's daughter within my wife's ladies in waiting and quickly saw Richelieu's suspicion confirmed: Chevreuse was manipulating Anne into writing letters, not only to her brother in Spain but, to my sheer rage, to _Buckingham _also.

The Spanish mare was genuinely pushing the English fool to attack La Rochelle, alluding to his duty as a gentleman to rescue her from “_the delusions of grandeur of an ill-advised King._”

Really. That's who I am?

  
_A megalomaniac puppet hanging on Richelieu's strings? _

  
Idiotic women.

Chevreuse's marriage to the Duke of Lorraine, one of my most precious allies, made her untouchable, but I still took measures for all of Anne's letters to be intercepted and delivered to me before they ever left the Louvre. As the reports from La Rochelle spoke of a plot in England designed to murder Buckingham soon, I thought her letters to him would have no crucial impact after all.

  
_I was wrong. _

Two notes were delivered to my desk last Tuesday.

One from my ambassador in London, informing me that The Duke of Buckingham had been killed by unknown hands in the British Parliament two days before.

The other was from Joseph.

It didn't look like his usual reports from the siege. It was coded, but shorter, less formal, and written on a plainer sheet. If this hadn't been evidence enough that Armand knew nothing of that particular letter, the fact that it was delivered to me by a Capuchin monk I had never seen before did the trick.

Of course, the letter referred to the assassination of Buckingham too, though it was dated one day before my own ambassador's note, but there was more.

> '_Charles is still sending the fleet he promised Buckingham, as a tribute to his devoted service.' _Joseph wrote
> 
> _'He has seen Queen Anne's letters and hopes he can take advantage of the Crown's inner divisions to win more French land. Expecting 114 ships and 5000 men in La Rochelle within a week._
> 
> _Guiton is still alive, though likely to be among the last six thousand standing in the city. He too must know about Charle's upcoming attack, and still refuses to surrender despite a fourth treaty sent to him last month. _

Two headstrong men on each side of a thick wall.

It seemed Richelieu let children die to avoid a battle that is still coming his way.

War is a nightmare, isn't it Armand? _War is a wild hunt._

I can pretend it was the upcoming fight that made me order for a carriage to be prepared. I can pretend those hundred ships were all it took because, in fact, they were more than enough.

But Joseph's letter had three more lines, written in a hurry, almost unreadable.

> _'His Eminence's strength will soon be reaching its limit. I am worried he won't make it through this last battle without your stabilising presence. Your return to La Rochelle is absolutely imperative.”_

I didn't even huff at the blatant lack of basic etiquette or even the smallest “please”.

I crumpled the sheet and stood up, shouting for preparations to be made, that's all. 

  
I can pretend, of course, and I know I always will.

But I know, deep inside, that there is no fooling myself.

I arrived in La Rochelle yesterday evening with twenty thousand livres in gold for the troops and repairs, five hundred fresh soldiers and twenty more cannons.

Waiting for me in Aytré were all my officers, Toiras in front of them all opening the carriage door himself.

When I left this place, it was harassed by cruel winds, frozen air and vicious drizzle, but as the door opened on the outline of the castle, only orange sunlight fell on my face, and rich fragrances of garden spices welcomed me with open arms. I stepped foot on dry, grassy land, squinting my eyes at perfect skies, and my men all shouted my name once more, saluting proud, their hats held high.

If I didn't smile back, I fear, it was because of the _silence._

  
I frowned and turned around to watch the outline of La Rochelle, stunned by the unholy stillness crushing the whole estuary. The distant sound of waves. A few gulls, no doubt.

But that was all. _That was all. _

No bells, no rumble, no ragged noise of hooves on cobblestones, no voices, no chanting, _nothing._

Soft summer breeze on unmoving stones, _the quiet song of all graveyards. _

My men followed my gaze, and they remembered that the last time I saw that City, she was a nest of life shouting in anger, not a tomb of thick ramparts. Their faces crumbled in unison, and Marillac signed himself.

I winced in sorrow but finally walked to shake their hands and receive their welcome. I called their names and clasped their arms, I spoke my thanks and asked for news, but my eyes fooled no one, I'm afraid. They were searching for him.

_They were searching for red. _

Once more they found it in the robes of another Cardinal, La Valette this time. The thick, sturdy man was patiently waiting to be noticed behind the line of my Officers, bowing low as I walked towards him.

He didn't even need me to ask. He bit his lips in apprehension, gesturing towards the castle and leaning towards me to whisper.

“The Generalissime is waiting for you in the study. I advised him to rest as much as he could before the attack, but he is... difficult to restrain.”

I nodded, sneering. I got the picture.

I told Toiras I'd change before dinner, where I expected a thorough briefing from him, but neither my eyes nor my mouth seemed to fool anyone on that day.

“I am s-sure Generalissime de Richelieu's b-briefing alone will suffice.” He gently mused, and I gave up on my façade with a shrug.

I had this blurry feeling there was something they didn't tell me, but truly, I couldn't care.

I moved to run to the castle gates, only stopped by La Valette's firm, yet humble hand on my arm. I turned around to search into the robust man's brown eyes and read a concerned warning there.

“You might find him... somewhat damaged by the strain of this war.” He tried. “Please grant him your indulgence, Your Majesty. Never a body and soul have been so burdened by duty.”

My frown deepened, I knew, _I knew_, I should have come sooner.

  
I rushed inside the castle, running to the first floor, vaguely wondering why dinner seemed to be prepared in the council room instead of the wider, larger dining room, but then again, I couldn’t care less. 

In the study, all I saw was darkness.

Hell, I swear there was a radiant evening sun outside though, the kind of bright copper light you want to bathe forever in. The view was made of cheerful tones, flavours of cooking and flowers duelling with delights upon the soft, fresh air.

But all curtains were drawn inside, only the timid light of candles left alive. All doors and windows were closed, only the smells of ink and linen filling the sullen room.

I blinked a few times to get used to the dark, and I caught a glimpse of Joseph standing at a wide table among a raging mess of papers, bowing for me with what could have been a relieved smile. Despite obscurity, the old monk read my silent question clear enough. He didn't speak a word to me.

He gently turned around instead, and behind his black robes, I got a glimpse of red. That red.

_My red. _

Joseph leaned down and spoke a few words to a sleeping form in an armchair, and I recognised that twitch of the legs instantly.

“I _asked_ you to wake me up before...” a weak, broken voice whispered though, and I didn't recognise this one at all.

Richelieu stood up from the chair in a heavy hiss of red silk, though he seemed to be wearing a plainer set of robes, and walked towards me stiff as clockwork, his usual elegance crushed by dreary exhaustion.

“Your Majesty, such a pleasure,” he said _– once more –_ but I couldn't pay attention to the warmth of his words, because his face crossed a ray of light, and I took half a step back.

He was white as a sheet, dull and distant eyes lost behind a cataract of pain, circled in the ugliest purple I had seen on anyone alive. His cheeks were desperately hollow, his shoulders tensed by the habit of soreness, his lips horribly chapped and wounded.

He smiled, and that radiant joy I had seen before reassured me for a second, but I noticed his hands, and I felt punched in the stomach.

They were covered in nasty wounds, half of them wrapped in bandages, the rest very likely to leave permanent marks. Bruises, cuts and lacerations, all self-inflicted, didn't leave an inch of his skin intact.

_Punishment_ – my mind cried, and it was just as if he heard it in my own voice. He instantly gasped and hid his hands into his robes with a shameful wince.

He stood in front of me for a while still, his gaze lowered, worrying his lips, and there was no need for me to see the dead bodies of La Rochelle anymore. They were all drawn, clear as day, in every line of misery around his eyes.

But this was him, this was still him, and the roaring of my skin I had been trying to ignore for months came back in a whirl, demanding his presence in buzzing shivers. Armand. _Only Armand. _

I moved towards him, absent-minded, vaguely thinking my hand would pass right through him if I tried to touch his face, but of course, _of course_, he shifted away from my reach the same second.

The _pain_ I felt, somewhere within, made me clench my teeth in rage.

_Don't you dare, filthy snake, I have come back for you._

Obey me, I am your King. Yield to me, or _I'll make you. _

I was about to grab his sleeve and force him to look at me at least, but Joseph's hand circled his arm before mine, only to pull him back towards the table with care and reverence, his quiet voice filling the air between us.

“His Majesty has surely come to inquire of the dispositions His Eminence has taken in preparation for the incoming attack.” He said, angling his head to meet Richelieu’s stare.

Armand shivered, blinked for a while, and nodded hastily. He went for his gloves first, of course, and reluctantly opened the curtains, whimpering in genuine torment as warm sunlight invaded the room. He quickly slid to the table nonetheless and arranged the confusing display of papers there, very careful never to cross my eyes once.

He unrolled and turned towards me a huge map of the siege force, featuring all improvements made since my departure in red ink above the original black.

“As His Majesty can see,” his shattered voice explained, “we have turned our focus upon artillery, making its range of action wider and longer, covering the whole estuary with constant force -”

**_“Wait!”_** I growled.

He jumped in surprise and looked at me at last as I strode towards the table and banged my hands on the map.

I didn't want to discuss siege force. I didn’t want to talk about artillery range.

I wanted to know about the Huguenot soldiers, the women, the children, and this dead city behind my windows. I wanted to hear about those scars on his own hands, those lines around his eyes.

I wanted anything, _anything really_, but a bloody checklist of those _walls._

The walls and the forts were fine, I was sure. _What was in ruins was him._

My worry wasn't to be _ignored. _

He bravely held my gaze, he knew, _of course, he knew_, but though I still saw that old anguished adoration burning in his eyes, he only tapped his fingertips on the map twice, and humbly announced,

“Your Majesty, Charles' ships left Portsmouth this morning. They'll be in La Rochelle tomorrow by noon.”

I froze for a minute, staring at him in disbelief, then closed my eyes and _sighed_.

  
  
_Dinner in the Council room, of course. That's what they weren't telling me. _They all knew there would be no time for a quiet supper.

Tomorrow. We’ll wage war tomorrow. With me, unprepared, with him, in that _state_. A nightmare, a wild hunt.

  
A long silence stretched in the study before I rubbed my eyes and huffed,

“Alright, Cardinal. Tell me everything.”

And that he did.

For two hours, in clever, efficient sentences, he told me what he had done with this war city of his, and I was right when I thought he had built the nine circles of hell. Double walls all around the siege, iron gates on every fort, and steel pikes on the seawall. No blind spot left for the cannons, may it be on the forts or on the Island. Forty thousand men were ready for battle as we spoke, and enough ammunition to fight for a whole month.

The ten most likely moves from the English fleet had already been predicted and planned, damage and casualties counted, responses prepared. Everything had been thought of, weighed and mastered in the most brilliant, and yet dreadfully cold manner I had ever seen.

He spoke of two thousand losses minimum on our side, against the total eradication of the five thousand men the British fleet consisted of, all of it without even a flinch. Those soldiers, those honest men, were numbers and nothing more, written on charts right next to his maps, balanced in cold calculations about the odds of our victory.

I remember I gauged him as he laid out how the battle had been intended, and how all of the Officers knew of their duty already, only waiting in the Council room for my final approval.

I remember I searched for more traces of the Armand I knew before, like the reassuring smile I had earlier.

The way he wore his light robes was still impeccable, for sure. The neat arrangement of his hair, pinned under his small red hat, no doubt. The way his fingers underlined places on the maps, maybe.

  
The way he stole distressed peeks somewhere around my shoes as he spoke, perhaps.

As for the rest, he was nothing more than his darkest Minister facade, thickened and deformed into a terrifying monster of ice. 

I listened, I understood, and of course, I approved. I couldn't have devised a better plan myself. Not, though it hurts me to say it, in a thousand years.

Joseph politely led me to the Council room then, where a sturdy meal had been served around the meeting table, and I discussed details of the battle with a circle of nodding Officers, all of them far more prepared than I was.

Richelieu discretely joined the table, later on, having added a few layers of formal robes upon the thin silk he greeted me with. He sat at my side, refused all food or drink, and no one seemed much surprised. Toiras eyed him with sympathy and concern, while the others limited themselves to fear and respect.

After a while, I thought I heard a soft sigh of comfort escaping his lips, and I turned to him to see his face somewhat relaxed, the ghost of a peaceful smile on his thin mouth. I didn't understand at first.

Only as the dinner ended, the officers leaving to take their posts for a short rest before the battle, did I notice that his gloved hand had gripped a corner of my coat between our seats, holding it tight between wounded fingers.

Fool that I was, I took it as a good sign.

Despite Joseph’s warning glare as he closed the door on his way out, I reached out for Armand's hair the moment we were alone and _snarled_ when he flinched away again.

The pain I felt, somewhere within, made me clench my fists in fury.

I stood, livid and aching, grabbed him by the lapels of his robes, hauled him up and _yelled_. I said I’d make him obey. I said I’d force him against my skin. I am a man of my word.

I am his King after all, and he is _my property._

I gripped his wrists and squeezed his bones, I pulled off his gloves, and I twisted his arm until his fingertips touched my cheek, but the fire I craved died before it could rise because Armand's face didn't even twitch.

_He didn't react at all. _

His breath was a bit short, but there wasn’t a hint of emotion in his damaged eyes, his face blank and distant, and I didn't understand. All I felt was soaring agony.

His apathy tore me to shreds more than his arrogance ever did.

He dared to deny me even his cries, and after six months away from his skin, my guts howled in sheer _distress_.

I slapped his face so hard he fell to the side, the sound of his knees hitting the parquet muffled by his waves of red silk.

He still refused to cry for me.

The pain I felt, somewhere within, made me _lose my mind._

I stepped on his robes, grabbed his hair, yanked it backwards to shout venom at his face, but no matter how violent I could be, it did not satisfy me, and I did not understand. I felt no spark, no fire, and no pleasure. Only a gaping void of incompletion, of urgency unfulfilled.

_He didn't react at all. _

I said I’d make him obey. I said I’d force him anyway.

He’d know his place, he’d yield to me.

But there he was, on his knees as I abused his fragile skin, and yet the fire never came.

Something had changed. In him, _in me. _

I didn't understand at first.

  
Panting, confused and terrified, I retreated to the door, my eyes fixed upon his face where I couldn't read anything more than mild pain and vague regret. He didn't even try to speak; he just bit his lips and forced himself on his feet, with moves that looked like something done three times a day.

He leaned on the Council table with one hand, quietly wiped a trickle of blood off his nose with the other, and averted his eyes without a sound.

When I felt my own eyes burning with tears, I slammed the gates shut, only to face the piercing stare of Joseph leaning against the wall near the doorframe.

He had heard everything.

I froze, ready to roar and threaten and curse, expecting everything from hate to contempt.  
But none of this passed on his dark, closed face.

He merely watched what seemed to be the corner of my eye for a while, then let out a tired sigh, and gave the fondest, sweetest smile I think I ever saw in him.

“Get some rest, Your Majesty.” He breathed. “Tomorrow, France will need the best that you can be.”

And with that, he gently pushed me away from the door and entered the council room.   
I stood there, listening to the faint echoes of their voices, Joseph soothing, Armand remote.

I didn't sleep. I didn't sleep at all.

I stood unmoving at my bedroom windows, watching the campfires around the siege walls, picturing a thousand times the grim tide of British sails appearing on the horizon, though I was more tortured by the burning void inside of me than the raging war coming upon us.

I didn't understand.

_At first. _

*** 

Now I think I do.

As the last broken ship turns around and laboriously sails away with a handful of men on board, yes, _I think I do. _

The battle has been everything it promised to be. The charts were right, the odds were true.

The fleet appeared a small hour before noon, and I felt around me forty thousand of my soldiers rumbling in hunger, ready to roll the ultimate dice.

I stood on the roof of Fort Louys, just like last winter, watching Armand below my feet almost alone on his dreadful seawall. Toiras was at my right, Marillac at my left, holding out maps and relaying orders to Schomberg on the Island.

They told me Lindsay was the name of the fleet's Commander this time, and damn, he was a bloody good sailor too. The tight pack of a hundred ships made a slow, peaceful approach, stretching to insanity the unbearable silence between war forces minutes before the storm.

We could almost stare at each other face to face for a while, the Lindsay and I, each of us clenching fists around the signal for fire, waiting for the other to make the first move. Our soundless duel lasted for a lifetime, cradled by the sea, the silence of La Rochelle, only broken by waves and lost seagulls.

Then, suddenly, Lindsay's cannons fired with flawless aim, blasting a frightening hole into the side of Fort D'Orléans, tearing hundreds of French soldiers apart.

Richelieu ordered his massive seawall cannons to reply, destroying ten ships in one hour. It pushed the fleet towards the Island again, and I signalled Schomberg to burn their rear.

So the battle went raging on. 

Cannons yelled in deafening drums, a thunder of steel crashing upon the fort walls in relentless, violent rain. Five ships sunk against the iron pikes of the seawall, their carcasses joining the remnants of the winter battle, quickly making the wall impossible to approach.

The Red Beast stood still, ruling upon his own polder of shipwrecks, unmoving, just like before, under a spiteful fire of artillery. Cannonballs crashed upon the seawall, clearly aiming at him more than at the structure itself, no doubt a consequence of Anne's insistent letters.

Richelieu didn't even seem to notice, not even as one projectile tore his flag officer in half, no more than five yards on his left.

A war machine, and nothing more.

  
My dear Armand, who _feels _so much.

_At first, I didn’t understand._

I barely saw him this morning. I left Aytré at dawn and set myself to ride around the troops before I took my stand on Fort Louys. I wanted every soldier to see my face and hear my voice today if only to remind them how proud, how grateful I felt for the life they were ready to lay down.  
For France._ For me. _

I left no regiment, no man forgotten and came back only a few minutes before the first English sails became visible by spyglasses. By that time, Richelieu was already standing tall, in heavy armour and thick red cloak, with Joseph and La Valette at his side pointing at the horizon.

He stood this way until the end, just as I stood my ground on the fort that bore my name. The stronghold had been Lindsay's main focal point from the first hour to the last, and it was under constant attack, swaying and crumbling on every side. They told me twice I had to evacuate, but I refused.

I knew Lindsay was watching, and if he was even half the man he seemed to be, I didn't want to give him the joy of seeing the King of France cower back.

I think I ended up standing upon nothing more than a fragile building made of loose stones and dead bodies, frowning at the maddening beats of artillery, barking orders, cringing at the sight of burning walls and fallen soldiers.

The charts were right, _the odds were true. _

But the British didn't know about Richelieu's added fortifications or improved range of cannons. They didn't know about his cold calculations of every loss, every sacrifice, not even when Fort d'Orléans crumbled entirely upon itself, killing every man still fighting inside. 

They didn't know the Red Beast had made this fort a little bit easier to destroy, just to lure the fleet into staying in the narrowest part of the estuary, where our cannons could inflict the highest damage.

They didn't know about half of our flag signals being decoys.

They didn't know the charts, they didn't know the odds.

Two thousand dead on our side at least, indeed.

_But five thousand on theirs, no less. _

At half past ten in the evening, as nightfall came upon La Rochelle, only one ship remained, raising the white flag of surrender, and Lindsay was on a makeshift lifeboat trying to escape from his sinking lead ship to this last one.

Toiras asked me if I wanted him to be aimed at. I shook my head.

Below my feet, Armand seemed to make the same choice.

We let the Englishman turn away with his dignity as a soldier.

Fort Louys was standing only by a thread, and all around us flames were destroying what artillery couldn't, but across the estuary, _the mighty seawall had prevailed once more. _

La Rochelle was still French land.

_Victory was ours. _

“Lift your hat, Marshal of France.”

Toiras complied, sending a yell of pure joy to the night skies.

Just like last time under crispy air and vicious drizzle, the echo of his scream resonated among the troops, and I heard thunder rising all around the city once more. By that glorious, magnificent roar, I realised most of my men were still alive, and I thanked God above for this priceless blessing.

I took some time to look at the seawall also because I knew God wasn't the only one to be thanked.

Richelieu was still there, his seawall cracked but standing; the pavement of granite covered in blood, debris and dismantled bodies.

He looked like he was enumerating a long list of orders for La Valette, and when the solid man rushed away, he did look up towards me, hesitated for a second.

And bowed.

He bowed, almost graceful once more, and flames roared in my chest.

Fool that I was, _I took it as a good sign. _

But as he walked back towards the land, while Joseph behind him carefully walked around the corpses upon the seawall, muttering prayers and drawing crosses for all of them, Richelieu strode a fast straight line, his boots crushing torn limbs and clawing hands alike, barely lifting the rim of his cloak to avoid the pools of sea-washed blood.

I clearly saw him step on the spilt guts of his flag Officer, not even sparing a glance for the brave man who died for his service.

_And now, I understand._

_  
_That man is a monster.

This is what La Rochelle turned him into, this is what he had to become. His fragile heart wrapped in layers of iron, marching on broken bones.

_Marching on broken bones. _

He didn't deny me his tears. He is simply incapable of crying anymore.

Toiras is calling for celebration, and praise is already raining around me, but this time I just raise a hand, and though I thank them all for their admirable loyalty, I excuse myself and rush down towards the fort gates.

My path also is filled with shattered bodies, barely visible in the scarce firelights, and I gently circle around them, oh, God, _how lost a man must be to step on dead soldiers of France? _

My Armand, who feels so much.

How broken he must be.

I meet him in the small courtyard before the gates, where the fort joins the seawall. No lights around us, except the timid moon and a dying fire behind him.

I don't speak right away. I just watch him, his face white and grey, his eyes distant and unreadable. His gloved hands clenched in shaking fists, his boots glued with flesh and blood.

I don't speak right away. For once, _I won't order. _

Commands would achieve nothing. Violence or pain won't even shake him anymore. He buried himself so deep beneath his self-made armour that he can walk unmoved on the torn guts of French soldiers.

_Now, I understand. _

War is a nightmare, war is a wild hunt, and the Armand I knew has been lost, replaced by a machine with nothing but a purpose.

He needs to be found before I can expect anything of him.

I don't speak right away. For once, today,_ I won't order. _

I carefully reach for his sleeve instead; my fingers sliding under his wrist without letting our skins meet. I lift his gloved hand to my mouth and kiss it once, releasing it immediately after.

“Thank you, Cardinal.” I finally breathe, and something comes to life in his blemished eyes.

His lips tremble for a heartbeat or two, and it might be the longest eye contact we have held since I came back. I wait, hopeful, and as I hear someone step closer and call my name, I raise an imperious hand to shut him up, not leaving the wide stare of anthracite.

Armand opens his mouth to speak, and I almost growl in delight, but his dark eyes catch something above my shoulder and the words he was about to give slowly turn into a hideous, predatory smile.

It makes him downright terrifying.

I gingerly turn around to follow his gaze, and I see it, just above the highest tower of their Temple, shining clear under the moonlight.

La Rochelle raised the white flag.

_The City surrenders. _

I hear a foul, sinister laugh behind me, and a shudder creeps up my spine when I realise it is Armand, _God, who even is that man? _

I turn back to him and watch in dread and disbelief as he licks his lips with that ghastly grin as if he was ready to devour the whole province.

“If you will excuse me, Your Majesty,” he murmurs in a silken, though sickening voice, “it seems the negotiations are taking a brand new start.”

And with that, he elegantly slides around me and strides to the stables, snapping his fingers at Joseph behind his back.

The despair in the monk's black clever eyes, I am sure, almost matches my own.


	11. November the 1st 1628, Rue Grande, City of La Rochelle.

The Red Beast sealed the fate of La Rochelle in sixty days.

During those months, while I was busy cleaning the mess of the last battle away, burying or repatriating the dead, paying and rewarding the living, Richelieu meticulously exploited the hopelessness of the miserable five thousand men still alive in those ramparts to unstitch the City's privileges one by one.

With Buckingham dead and Charles defeated, the last prospect of help from England had been blasted to shreds in front of their eyes, and the survivors in La Rochelle were ready to accept just about anything.

Guiton still resisted on religion, of course, the poor fool more than ever persuaded it was all about Faith, but the Cardinal granted him freedom of cult with a nonchalant shrug while making sure La Rochelle's wealth and harbour were shackled to the feet of my throne forevermore.

When the last delegation of five scrawny men came to Fort Anne to see the definitive treaty, they were so desperate and famished that they barely read the document before they signed.

And yet, what they had just approved was the complete destruction of ramparts older than my own bloodline, and the abolition of every financial advantage they gained over the years, turning their magnificent stronghold into a trading platform for the Crown's treasury.

The treaty was merciless and inescapable. I barely managed to make Richelieu squeeze total armistice for the surviving men of La Rochelle in it because I felt the _war monster_ ready to hang them all just for the _picture _of it.

In fact, when we let the five emissaries go back to the City with my promise of peace and food for the next day, Richelieu's look upon their throats was so _ravenous_ that I sensed those poor men were grateful I was holding my beast on a leash.

Was I?

_Really, was I? _

During those sixty days, bathing in the success of his war machinery, he walked around in an aura of raw evil, to the point where even Toiras averted his eyes on his passage. He was moved by that dark energy I had only rarely seen in him, made of anger and pain alone.

His body had been pushed far beyond its limits, showing alarming signs of shutting down. Joseph's concern grew pathetic as Armand's grim rage consumed him whole every single day, and yet the Red Demon pushed on, _walking on broken bones. _

  
He even went above and beyond my own command to devour a peace treaty out of a terrified Charles within four days of negotiations.

Truth be told, he was barely controllable, and the price he was paying for all that strength was starting to stretch beyond the point of no return.

I tried to talk to him, I swear I tried, but dialogue is not my strongest suit.

He used to _draft my own speeches,_ after all.

Only once, in the late hours of the night before yesterday, as a note from Guiton himself had been delivered to his study in Pont-La-Pierre, promising him the mayor's official resignation, and a ceremony around the passing of the City Keys to me in person, I dared a few words, my carelessness horribly faked.

“You could rest, now, Cardinal. The treaty is signed, Guiton is defeated. All is done.”

_See? Still not ordering. _

He seemed to consider my words for a while, visibly troubled by the peace offering in my voice, but though his eyes softened a bit, it only lasted for a second before he straightened his back and lifted his chin, narrowing his exhausted eyes at the dark city towers outside the windows.

“Not yet.” He hissed. “There's still one more day.”

And sliding the note into his heavy robes, he spun around to arrange for my escort to Aytré.

I tried to talk to him, I swear I tried, but it felt like screaming at the gates of a fortress.

_It felt like scratching ramparts with famished and bare nails. _

As we ride on desolated lands from the ruins of Fort Louys to the city gates by now, I realise what, exactly, he has done with this last day.

He _cleaned_ everything.

A few of the women and children's bodies were still lying there around the gates two months ago as I came back, no more than a few dried up limbs wrapped in torn rags, played upon by lukewarm winds.

Today, there's nothing left of them.

I ride slowly on barren fields, followed by my Officers in formal armour and on ceremonial horses, along with a hundred of the bravest foot soldiers from the siege force.

I ride slowly, on a magnificent black Friesian mare that has been sent to me from Saumur especially for today, dressed in cumbersome white and gold velvet as if to pose for an official portrait.

I ride slowly, and five feet behind me, my Red Beast follows, his eyes humble and his shoulders low, having, against all the odds, dropped his steel armour for wide robes of dark brocade.

I feel there is something he wants to say with the absurd lie this meek attitude is, trying to pass as everything but the _warlord_ who has crushed this city to death, but I don't have much time to think about it, for the city gates open, and a thunderous music instantly roars from behind them.

I gasp in wonder, _bloody hell, the bastard._

A fanfare. He has put a bloody fanfare inside that mass grave, having cleaned the main street of dead bodies and chewed-up bones, pushing dirt and misery aside to make way for my glorious parade.

  
  
One more day, he said, and the devil _used it, _alright.

As I pass under the massive ramparts into La Rochelle, all I see along the Rue Grande is two thick rows of delighted faces, shouting my name in praise and devotion, their clothes washed, their skins coloured.

They're thin, for sure, but how happy they look. _Well, of course, they bloody are._

Richelieu made sure the first bread they ever received came from the huge cart following my parade, filled with five thousand fresh loafs the army bakers have spent three days preparing.

As we march up to the main Temple of the city, now the consecrated Catholic Church of Saint Louis, food is thrown by whole armfuls at the people of La Rochelle, and I am welcomed as God himself would be. Women, or at least the few dozen that are left, throw bay tree flowers at my feet, bay tree_ flowers_ for God's sake, we're in November, how the Hell did he find those?

I turn around to glance at him, but he just attends, self-effacing, head low, almost unnoticed, _come on_, _every wall that smothered this City was drawn by your own hands. _

I let out a sharp sigh of disbelief, but I am called back in front of me by a pair of youngsters offering me their father's sword, bowing low, wishing me blessings and long life.

I recognise in them the first emissary from La Rochelle, that poor farm boy with his pregnant wife, and quickly search around for signs of her presence. Of course, I find none, and since I'm not sure the dark lines around this young lad's eyes are from famine or sorrow, I won't dare to ask.

I have their father's sword. It means they have no father anymore, _isn't that enough? _

_Corpses so dry they never rot. _

_Children mummified in their own bedsheets. _

I frown upon tears I can't be seen with, spurring my horse up the main street, oh, dear God, even _ribbons. _There are banners and ribbons flowing from the windows of the houses on each side of the street, quietly dancing to the fresh November wind, moved by the joyful march of the fanfare, _if it isn't the ghastliest theatre play I have ever featured in. _

_‘One more day’ he said. _

The Red Demon did work, alright.

I admit, in his defence, this is what had to be done. Not only the citizens of La Rochelle are watching, but also Huguenots all over the Kingdom, England, Spain, and the Hapsburgs. This is more than a sick carnival; this is a message, a statement, _a show of force._

I still feel despicable. I still feel nauseous.

But I ride on, spreading blessings of food, gold, and gifts behind my steps, receiving praise and tributes continuously from the gates up to the Church.

I know the grim charade doesn't go further than this very street.

I know, I am certain that if I went ten yards out of my planned itinerary in any direction I want, I'd find that stench, I'd find that filth, I’d find misery and death barely covered by the first signs of frost. They're right behind those ribbons, right over those happy faces, they're here, and they're waiting, the dead bodies with hollow eyes.

I can almost feel their grip on my shoulder.

I suppress the shivers I can't be seen having, and the parade stops in front of the new Church.

  
It's just as bare as any Protestant Temple should be, only covered in more banners and flags to disguise it as something I’d know.

The sublime, yet _revolting_ spectacle isn't over at all.

Upon the steps of the Temple, Guiton awaits, his thick black doublet hiding skinny limbs and maybe a stiff leg. I dismount, and the fanfare music quiets down, replaced by a choir of nuns, obviously brought from the Convent of Saint Sauveur, fifty miles north of here.

They sing a flawless Te Deum as the crowd gathers around the Main Place, devouring bread and shouting my name in joy and thankfulness.

_It's all so disgustingly perfect it makes me bite the inside of my cheeks. _

  
Richelieu sets foot on the ground right next to me, meets my eyes for a second with a face I still can't read, quickly hidden in a small bow. There is something he wants to say, with this quiet, courteous stance, but I have no time to think of it because Guiton walks towards us with a short, respectful speech.

But there is a surreal moment of complete silence right after, as Guiton lowers himself, presenting us with a silk cushion bearing the City Keys, where instead of standing at my side the Red Beast elegantly takes a step back, leaving the bright November sunlight shine on me alone, and then_, only then, it all makes sense._

The people's voices rise up like wild birds, roaring in joy, _Louis le Juste_, they all cheer.

_Louis Le Juste. _

I look at him over my shoulder. He’s still bowing to hide his face, but where there was minutes ago nothing more than dulled pain and a blank stare, I see that blissful smile of proud adoration revived, and yes, it all makes sense.

_That's what he wanted to say. _

He planned all this, every second of this, just like he planned every bloody day of those eighteen months of war. He designed everything on his maps and charts, in bright colours and cheerful tones, in drumming rhythms and merry faces.

It is a statement, it is a message. For Spain, for the Huguenots, and the Hapsburgs of course.

But above all, _for me._

He wrote a whole allegory, brought it to life, and dedicated it to my name.

_It was all about you,_ his glorious painting says. _It was all for you. _

_'Is Your Majesty satisfied with the way His crown is being fought for?'_

  
His voice docile around the siege walls.

His bow graceful upon conquered ships.

I realise as my heart almost stops, that on that bright day of November, Armand de Richelieu just offered me a whole city.

A City, a Province, a vision, _a future._

Dreams getting closer, history being written.

Our map of Europe reproduced in blood upon real, fertile land.

Dizzy with glory, I lift my eyes up to the high tower of La Rochelle, where my banner and flag wave peacefully against white winter skies.

He vanquished me a whole stronghold.

Has anyone ever received a more ardent declaration?

_'Mon Roi.' He breathed. _

God, he loves me.

  
Beneath all those layers of death and destruction, Armand, my dear Armand, he's there. _He's still there._

_He still **feels** so much._

  
In that smile he hid from me, it seems he has been found.

I enter the Church, its every wall dutifully washed from despair or prayers for bread, and sit in the high chair they pushed forward on the altar. There is a smaller seat behind my own, and I know for whom it is meant, so I have it shifted forward until it meets my level, and tolerate no argument. Armand watches it done without a word, his brow somewhat worried, but eventually he gently nods and sits down, his eyes not once leaving the floor of the main alley.

Guiton comes to sit in the first row with a delegation of Protestants, mingling with my officers as brushstrokes of black in my colourful parade, and we all receive the most glorious Missa Solemnis ever sang.

To the sound of the choir and the chants of the people, to the pride of my soldiers and the respect of the defeated, I count in silent awe the wounds and sacrifices one single man has pushed himself to, just for a chance at this very moment.

A snake, a beast, no doubt, but all in all, _a remarkable man._

To the glorious light, to the white winter skies, I let myself bathe in the feeling of being loved by the magnificent lunatic he is, and realise that for more than four years now, my Kingdom has only been forged in the flames of his devotion.

As La Valette starts a sermon bearing the marks of Richelieu's own writing, I choose my words carefully for a while, before I speak with guarded tones, keeping my eyes in front of us, and my voice low enough to be heard only by him.

“I would be pleased if you could do me the favour of joining me in my rooms for a talk later tonight, dear Cardinal.”

I hear his small gasp, I hear it loud and clear, but I don't move an inch. While La Valette speaks of unity and peace, I just give Armand some time.

A few minutes pass, but eventually, I hear his voice, tense and confused, whisper “I will, Your Majesty” and it's enough to ignite my hopes.

*** 

I waited patiently.

  
  
I waited until the end of all sermons, speeches, and ceremonies, countless documents signed, countless demands considered. I waited until the slow resurrection of La Rochelle was planned or promised, and much later on, I waited until every soldier had spoken his toast, the last bottle being opened for our last night in Aytré.

Richelieu's discrete escape after we left the city staggered no one, as it has been months now since he hasn't spoken much besides to Joseph or myself. His degrading health had been noticed by everyone by then, and they were all expecting him to lay down and die much more than to celebrate with us.

I waited patiently.

When I could be excused without raising suspicions, I got up and thanked them all one last time before I made my way upstairs and slammed the door upon the relative silence of my bedroom.

I finally dropped those insane clothes of white and gold on the floor, let myself fall into my armchair, and stared blankly into the roaring hearth.

Voices and music could still be heard, but dimmed and blurred to soothing background noise. There was still an ancient carafe of Eau-de-Vie in my cupboard, and it was all the festivity I wanted from this moment on.

I waited patiently, lulled by the songs of my soldiers, still hazed by the memory of his smile, preparing my words, caressing my hopes.

I waited patiently, _he'll come to me_, I thought.

He always does.

After a small hour of tipsy peace, I hear the panel click loose and slide to the side, and I let out a small chuckle of joy. My Armand, _he always does. _I get up, my glass still in my hands, and here he is, closing the secret door and shrugging his soaked cloak off his shoulders, _oh, is it raining? I haven't noticed._

He carefully folds his coat upon a stool, bows as elegantly as his fading body allows him to, and joins his hands on his stomach.

“You asked to see me, Your Majesty?” He lets out, and the cold distance in his voice grips my stomach in a vice of frost.

Fool that I am, always imagining good signs.

Remembering one single smile and forgetting eighteen months of cold iron.

  
I grunt, abandoning the two first sentences I have prepared.

_The only sentences I had prepared._

Speech is not my strongest suit.

To hide my helplessness, I spin around to fetch another glass, pour a generous fill of Eau-de-Vie and hand it to him without a word.

He stares down at it as if it was five essences of poisonous plants, and refuses my offer with a slow shaking of his head, _oh, for God's sake._

“Take that bloody glass and sit down **_right now_**, or I swear I'll make you –”

He softly steps back towards the panel door, his face unshaken, his eyes frozen, and I bite my lips to keep myself quiet.

No. _Calm down. _Breathe in, breathe out.

Orders will achieve nothing. Violence cannot move him anymore.

He stepped in the warm guts of his own soldiers, _walking unshaken on broken bones. _

This man who could cry for a harsh word just starved twenty-five thousand people to death. He is lost far beyond the point when he can even _perceive_ my anger.

I raise a reassuring hand, lay down his glass on my nightstand, and empty mine in one gulp. I knit myself a hint of a smile. He stops shifting away.

Good. _Very well. _

Now, don’t ruin it.

God, I hate how _incapable _I feel.

He tilts his head to the side, frowning at my silence, looking like he could talk, and if he ever dares to suggest me words I should be saying as he used to for my speeches I swear I'll tear his face in half and kick him until he-

No.

Calm down.

“Listen.” I hiss. “ All I want you to do is -

His face remains impassive, and he exhales softly, his eyes drifting away somewhere over my shoulder, locking themselves away from me.

I know that gaze, he’s not even there anymore, he could be making mental checklists about finances right as I speak to him, _Bloody Hell,_ _I am making **efforts** for you when I could just break you in pieces,_ _will_ _you just look at me, you filthy **beast**!_

** _-Bang! - _ **

I blink, watching my fist, planted into a door of my cupboard so hard it split the sturdy wood. His stare focuses back on me for a second, then fades away just as quickly.

Oh, dear God, I need to calm down. My old anger is useless here.

Commands would achieve nothing. Authority won’t bring him back, _I know_, but bloody hell, authority is everything I am. I can’t I find anything else in me than this raw, bitter fury.

I have never been more than a shell filled with rage.

_Who is the beast, right now? _

_Who is the demon to be tamed? _

Oh, Lord, have mercy on me.

I free my fist from the cupboard, massaging my knuckles in vague despair, searching blindly for something, anything besides the boiling mess that has been whirling in me since the first day my mother denied me all of her smiles.

“Armand.” I end up whispering, and frankly, I don’t know why.

But his eyes find mine straight away, and I hold on tight to that thin rope.

“I want you to-” I try.

No. _Stop ordering. _

“Don’t you want to rest a bit?” I plead, and his wide gaze brightens in surprise.

Good. Now, don’t ruin it. _Don’t ruin it._

I grab an armrest of the chair I was sitting in and pull it towards him, trying on a botched smile, forcing a muzzle on my own wild, furious impatience. _Taming a beast to soothe another. _

All those years, all my life, anger has helped me everywhere. Anger has pushed me to where I am, anger has made me who I am. Anger has killed Concini, anger has crowned me King.

Now that I have to set it aside, there is nothing left inside my heart. I am empty, disabled, destitute. Lost in unknown lands I never cared to explore.

“Would you – _erm_\- sit down?” I ask.

He refuses, and I _growl_, my fists clenching in wrath, _no, **calm down.**_

_Who is the beast? Who is the demon right now? _

Lord, have mercy.

I try and catch my breath. Fighting myself is taking almost all the strength that I have, _God is this everything I am?_

_A shell filled with rage. _

I keep my eyes down, breathe in, breathe out, focus.

_Stop telling him what you want. _

_He knows what you want. _He knows.

What does _he_ want?

  
Beyond my commands, beyond his duties.

_What could this man ever want from me? _

Perhaps...

“You have shown yourself admirable during the war, Cardinal,” I speak on a hunch, my eyes still fixed on the floor between our feet. “Just as I never doubted you would be.”

His breath hitched. I hear silk ruffling and sighing. That's it, good. _Don’t ruin it. _

“France owes your remarkable efforts a brighter future.”

I clear my throat, my hands clenching and unclenching in nervous spasms, praying for my voice to remain steady, I swear I’ll die if I stutter again, _come on, spit it out, one word after the other._

I look up into his wide eyes of anthracite, and gently hammer,

“I owe you just as much.”

His hands shake, horribly so, and he looks like he forgot to breathe. He heaves, wheezing, tense to the point of breaking, and they come back rushing, the waves beyond the seawall. Finally.

I hear the storm inside of him, his old whirlwind of emotions, it's back, _it's back,_ and I’ve never been happier to witness it. Armand, my Armand, he’s still there. _He still feels so much._

I risk a step towards him, he doesn’t move away. _Don’t ruin it. _

“Your service is essential to me.”

One more step. He doesn’t run, his breath ragged and erratic, a radiant light fighting its way into his eyes, like a warm wind blowing life to dying embers.

“Your brilliant mind is essential to me.”

One more step, I’m within reach, _oh God, he doesn’t run, don’t ruin it._

He’s trembling in dreadful shudders, his whole body tortured and maimed by his whirlwind revived. I feel his own walls creaking like those ships crashed on iron spikes, and God, the fall will be mighty.

“Your ardent soul is essential to me.”

_He whimpered, thank God, he whimpered. _ I forgot how delightful that sound was.

Empowered, I slowly slide a hand under his elbow, barely touching, only grazing. He flinches, but he doesn’t move, terrified of the sounds from his crumbling fortress, and the howling of the storm awaiting deep inside. It’s been eighteen months. The fall will be mighty.

Let it come. _Let it come._

I lean towards him, a few inches no more, just enough for my lips to be closer to his ear.

“I need you to rest, Armand. I need you to live.”

The seawall breaks, cold iron shattering, and the ice in his eyes melt into thick streaks of tears. He sobs, once or twice, his body still stiff and battling, and at the sight of his soaked cheeks, at last, fire rages inside my guts, demanding his warmth, howling for his cries, _yes_.

The flames I craved. The calling of our skins, it's back, _it's back, _but I don’t even let my hand twitch.

I am more than my anger. _I am more than my own sin._

More than this shell filled with rage.

I push back my own flames, silence my fierce need. I only lean in further, my lips above his ear, never touching, only grazing.

_Taming a beast so soothe another. _

“I need you.” I breathe, and he cries out in inhuman agony, refusing the inevitable tempest already crashing against his heart.

He’s scared. He’s right to be. It’s been eighteen months.

_The fall will be mighty. _

“Let go.” I plead against his skin. “I’ll keep you safe. I am here, now, it’s all over.”

He cries again, his head softly leaning against my shoulder. The seawall crumbles, and God, how loud is his storm. Forceful, unstoppable, furious at having been ignored under layers of cold iron for so long.

I let both my hands grab his arms because he’s not even able to notice now. He’s panting, shaking so violently he might just snap, tears flowing on my shirt, strangely warm, for melted ice.

I grip him firmly, steadying myself. The seawall crumbles, _let the storm come._

_Let it come._

“Let go, Armand, _please._”

The _scream_ he lets out, buried in my shoulder, I don't think I’ll ever forget.

It is despair and strain, it is torment and shame. It is eighteen months of war and twenty-five thousand corpses. It’s the agony of a delicate soul burdened by the destiny of a whole world.

It’s Armand, at last.

_Dear Armand is back. _

The scream breaks after a while, and his whole body collapses, but for this, I was prepared. I gather him in my arms, breaking his fall as I have done before, as always sighing in relief into his silver hair. I kneel on the floor, eyes closed, holding him tight, and wait for a whole minute, listening to his heartbeat. At some point, to my deepest joy, his twitching recedes, and his breathing calms down.

He’s asleep.

“_Oh, thank God_,” I whisper for no one but the distant echoes of the party downstairs.

I’ll carry him on my bed, I’ll call the physicians. I’ll have Joseph finish the work, and I’ll have him shielded from even a sight of the City. I’ll lock him up in my carriage and drag him back into Paris.

I’ll carry him on my bed, I know I will, but not right now.

Right now, I will take time to remind myself how perfectly his lithe body fits against mine, and challenge God himself to come and tell me this is all wrong, as the brightest years of my country are being forged in the flames of this man’s love.

Our names engraved forevermore, in the great book of days to come.

_Has anyone ever received a more ardent declaration? _


	12. December 1st 1628, Royal Apartments, The Louvre, Paris

“Keep a constant eye on him” I order. “Let no one come near without his clear consent.”

The five men nod sternly.

Those are black Musketeers, among the best and most loyal. I gathered them in the first days I spent in Paris after La Rochelle. I knew Richelieu wasn't popular among Musketeers, but I needed trustworthy men truly willing to protect him, so I asked for volunteers instead of just naming them. Those five soldiers stepped forward, all determined to serve the Cardinal, and I wondered why at first.

Then I noticed all of them were quite older than the rest, and from families with either political or diplomatic experience. They all knew about Armand's true work. They respected him for it.

It seems that the Red Beast wasn't hated by _all_ of France after all.

I assigned those men to the Palais Cardinal right away, ordering them to seal Richelieu's rooms from the rest of the world.

I promised him his own Guards, after all, that one night in Pont-la-Pierre, and _I am a man of my word. _

To be honest, this particular promise wasn't the first thing I had in mind when I came back to the Louvre with Armand sleeping in my carriage. He was still in a dreadful state, barely able to walk, not a word coming out of his mouth. All I had heard from him since we left the dead city had been whimpers of exhaustion and nightmare screams. Physicians and rest were the only things I had planned for him.

What reminded me of the necessity of those Guards was _my Mother. _

I wasn’t foolish enough to expect her to change her mind about him in my absence, but really, this senseless mare never had the slightest taste for decency.

She started shrieking insults behind his back from the moment we returned, without a glance for what was left of him, or a thought for how busy I was. She barked and wailed and hissed, harassing me with endless loops of rant every hour of the day, in loud speeches and low sarcasm, all of them probably prepared in my absence, since she never seems to find anything useful to do with herself.

In the pitiful state of feverish slumber he was in, Armand was cannon fodder to her by then, and I couldn't let her damage him any further. I needed that man alive and functioning,_ I had to make sure he could recover. _

I found myself organising his protection while my trunks were still being unloaded from the travel carriage.

The Musketeers kept Mother away from his door with loyal efficiency, and it allowed Armand to slowly rise back from the dead in relative peace. In return, all her spiteful attention bounced back on me, and she barely left my presence at all, never shutting it for _one bloody hour_. Every good thing comes with a price, I suppose.

Well, I was getting my Red Beast back, which was all that mattered.

Indeed sleep erased a few of the ugliest colours around his eyes, and proper food, forced into him by a very obstinate Citoys, brought back a bit of flesh around his bones.

I visited him whenever my schedule allowed me to, at first spending hours watching him sleep, only speaking a few noncommittal words as he woke up. Then, as strength came back to him, talking a lot more, because reports from La Rochelle kept coming, and from the other side of his madness, Armand was starting to comprehend exactly what he had done. Though he didn’t regret the future his deeds opened for France, he felt crushed once more by the weight of his guilt.

The first strength he regained, he spent it _crying. _

He cried for days, curled in his bed, sobbing in self-hate, ready to punish himself for the suffering he had caused once more, by tearing his own hands apart or working himself to death again.

I couldn't allow any of this to happen.

I needed that man functioning._ I needed him whole. _

I could have just _ordered_ him to behave, but I felt him still vulnerable, walking on the edge of his own insanity, and since I had no intention of seeing the war monster of La Rochelle ever again, I kept making _efforts. _

  
I silenced my own beast. I forced my voice lower, my words careful.

‘You did what was necessary’ I said, and when he refused to be touched, I didn’t insist.

I kept on visiting him as often as I could, sitting on the same armchair next to his bed, and instead of growling or threatening or commanding, I just drank wine and talked, trying to sound reassuring, trying to prove myself _constant._ After ten tiresome days, I witnessed his first genuine smile, and I almost applauded in joy.

Reassured by my presence, soothed by the peace in my voice, he started to get out of bed for longer periods of time, getting dressed properly, and circling around work again. I only allowed him minor tasks at first, taking the rest of his usual duties upon myself, because dear God, they were _heavy._ It was bloody exhausting, how could one man do so much labour in a day?

_Well, a remarkable one, it's true. _

Meanwhile, the five Musketeers had taken their duty very seriously. In addition to simply guarding his door, they quickly started inspection tours, close protection, visitor checks. They ensured a feeling of safety in Armand's rooms and study, to the point where I found myself seeking refuge there from the bitter storm of my mother's annoyances more than once.

Indeed, outside Richelieu's doors, she stood waiting for me, her prepared bickering ready to be spat in my ears once more, relentless, disgusting. She was draining me, she was driving me _mad_.

I was trapped within her obsession. Orders to be quiet only sent her to higher yelling. Distractions didn't work for more than a few hours. Gentle talk had no impact on her dull, single-minded brain.

I thought about other methods, I swear I did, I thought about painful, drastic, definitive things, but Lord, have Mercy, _I am her son. _

It is not quite a surprise, then, if I enjoyed those tranquil visits to Richelieu all the more, as they went from efforts to tame madness to a respite from the rest of my days.

Besides, his crying gradually receded, replaced by clever, subtle allusions to politics or State business. He remained wary of any kind of touch, his eyes averted most of the time, but in fact, I think he grew accustomed to my being near again, and I found with delight our past conversations restored.

One fine Thursday morning, he unrolled that map of Europe once more and marked La Rochelle as conquered for the Crown with a few strokes of his elegant writing. He bowed gently then, a soft chuckle in his throat, and though I learned my lesson well about good signs, I allowed myself a bit of hope nevertheless.

It seems I wasn't wrong this time, as his smiles widened, his voice taking back those steady, resolved tones, his speech becoming more focused, more efficient by the hour.

After twenty days, by reasoning or by begging, he had taken charge of all his duties and felt steady enough to face the Court again.

_I was getting my Red Beast back. It was all that mattered. _

From that moment, hope grew from a faint fickle to a steady light, and as he quickly slid back in his old habits made of humble stances and soft bright stares, another kind of longing sparked back in my guts.

I remembered then, shivering, that I wanted Armand right at my side for _much more reasons than just duty. _

I didn’t want to go back to my nights of thick air and ice-cold skin. I didn’t want to go back to my dull, righteous misery, to my old life without a clue. I had the taste of his warmth still stuck in my mouth by then, and I didn’t want to let go. I had made a decision, _I would never go back. _

I wanted that man.

In my service, and in my bed.

At my Council, and _at my feet. _

I felt tempted, it's true, to take the easy option, and call on anger again. He was, no doubt, strong enough to take it by then. He would have kneeled if I had ordered him to. He would have touched me if I had commanded him to. He would have yielded to me, with the right amount of fear, _the right amount of pain. _

But for God's sake, that man offered me a whole City. A dream, a vision, _a future. _He destroyed himself upon this seawall a thousand times to raise my flag upon that tower, to paint that praise to my own name. As the keys of La Rochelle were handed to me he stepped back and let the sun shine on me alone, _has anyone ever received a more ardent declaration? _

I owed him everything, including the taming of my own beast.

  
I needed him functioning, it's true.

But truth be told, _I preferred him peaceful. _

So, on the twenty-first day in the morning, as we were scrolling through Condé's reports on the southern Huguenot wars, I decided that instead of orders and barks, it was time for a subtler move. Something agreeable, something unnecessary, something pretty only meant to _please_ him.

But I had no idea what.

I bit my lips and frowned, enraged by my cluelessness, and made a mental note to find a way to ask Toiras for advice. This huge man is _absurdly nice_. Surely he'd know something useful.

Yet, at the moment, I was on my own, and I let out the first thing that came to my mind.

“I will order a celebration” I mumbled.

I sighed at this pathetic sentence, _God, how hard those things were. _

Armand slowly let go of the map he was holding, tilting his head to the side with a confused lift of an eyebrow.

“A celebration, Your Majesty?” He asked. “Surely you mean a Council.”

I rolled my eyes, growling in rage,_ no, I don't mean **work**, you foolish beast! _

“I mean a ball.” I breathed, my hands clenching around the financial accounts of the army. “For you – _well, for us_. For La Rochelle. You know Etiquette, Cardinal. Things like that are almost compulsory for great victories such as this one.”

He stared at me, straight into my eyes, for a long, blessed minute, and I read pride, thankfulness and cautious joy taking turns in the embers of anthracite. At the end he simply bowed, granting me his poised elegance, revived from earlier days. The bright winter sun caught int his silver hair, and I exhaled in pure bliss. My hopes shone as only stars can, unyielding landmarks against darkness.

Now, I still order his Guard to be vigilant. It's the first time Richelieu is truly showing himself in public after La Rochelle, and though I trust his health to be steady, the Louvre is more than ever a wretched and traitorous place.

I need him functioning, _I prefer him peaceful. _

The Cardinal's Musketeers take their places around the ballroom. I heard Richelieu intends to double their pay and improve their outfits and weapons. In exchange for their will to serve the most hated man in France, they get the best equipment the Kingdom can give. Enough, I suppose, to make up for giving up the Royal arms for the Cardinal red. The _Red Guards. _Catchy, I suppose.

It also came to my ears that a lot of Musketeers from other regiments, attracted by the salary and prestige are already willing to join their ranks. Armand will soon have fifty men at his service, and God, Treville is going to be _furious. _

I walk to the high table, where a selection of the best Officers of La Rochelle has been placed. The organisation of the ball itself has been forcefully taken over by Mother, and I didn't resist, far too thankful for the momentary distraction it gave her. Of course, she turned a solemn celebration into a disgusting heap of silk and lace, perfume and powder, laughter and praise but I still managed to keep my Table of Honour and my seat right between Richelieu and Toiras. I still imposed my own orchestra, the one I use for my ballets, and the wine poured into my glass is my personal favourite.

She can't win over _everything. _

I stand in front of my seat for a while, saluting the Court. Everyone with a name of any significance is there, Mother and Anne standing in the centre of them all, in the most absurd dresses I have ever seen. Fashion is something I'll never get a grip on. I know they expect a speech. Well, learn two things, my dear people.

One, I hate speeches. _Two, I am the King._

I just nod once, clap my hands twice. Music starts, and after a vague murmur of indignation, everyone starts to eat or dance just as they should. I sit down, then, and invite my Officers to do the same.

The Cardinal slides on the seat to my right, facing the crowd in poised silence despite the increased amount of foul looks and unsubtle pointing in his direction since Mother's war regency.

No one in this cursed place cares the slightest bit for what this man does for the Crown, _don't you dare look at him like that, animals, this man vanquished a whole city, what have **you** done for France? What have you **done**?_

I sigh, desperate. Richelieu could expand the borders of France to the limits of the continent, those bastards would still hate him because they've been told, or paid to do so.

Armand, unable to get a glimpse of a friendly face from where he sits, shudders for a second, his eyes faltering slightly, and I swear I see Mother gloat in dark pleasure. Now, her hired Courtiers might be one thing, but the sight of _her_ just makes me _sick._

So, since I am sure she’s watching us closely, I make a deliberate show of serving Armand my own wine and dropping a few cruel jokes about the audience into his ear. I smile at his witty replies, even gently pick up his cloak as it fell on the floor between our chairs. I praise his service, his work, his loyalty, his virtue, loud enough to be heard, and laugh away his meek sounds of protest. I gladly keep this up for more than an hour, barely paying attention to anyone but him, covering him in favours and care, and by the end of it, every single one of Mother's tamed rats has lowered his eyes or dropped the subject. Her triumphant smile has withered like the rest of her body, and she hides her bitterness behind some useless shaking of her fan.

If the first dinner I invited him to was a rather quiet statement, this one is a raucous, thundering challenge_, and I have made myself clear._

I turn back to Armand with a shameless smug face. He understands, he always does. He lets out a deep, relieved sigh, and gently grabs my cloak under the table again. This time, I pretend I don't notice.

At some point, La Valette asks him to join the Churchmen table for a very delicate question of theology, and I excuse him with a nod, enjoying the sight of Courtiers dropping their eyes and bowing on his passage all across the room. When he passes near Mother, she is forced to give him a very polite greeting, and I barely hide my roaring pride as she darts a glance up at me,_ yes, I've seen that, Mother. _

Look at him walking past you, _look at him_, you have never been his purpose. You were a ladder, not a refuge. _A mean, never an end. _

He offered me a whole City. _He's mine, he's all mine now. _

Look at him as he passes you by. Who won that man over your grip? 

That son you never spared a sweet thought for.

When Toiras leans towards me and gently nudges my arm, I realise I am growling aloud. I blink, turn to him, and he asks, concerned,

“Is Your M-Majesty enjoying the ev-vening?”

I let my gaze follow Armand as he listens intently to La Valette, his fingertips joined on his mouth in delectation, the way he does where he is presented with his favourite food for thought.

I need him functioning, I prefer him peaceful.

_And I realise, dumbfounded, that I like him content._

“How do you please someone you like?” I blurt out.

My dear Jean coughs in his glass, and I slowly turn back to him. I don't think I meant to ask him so directly, but the wine has been quite good, and well, it seems I just did. He looks at me with round, astonished eyes, waiting for a confirmation that I really want him to answer that. My stare doesn't leave his face. It should suffice.

It does.

Toiras frowns, confused, and tries to understand my meaning by finding out who I was looking at. I tense and clench my teeth in panic before I remember there isn't a world where he would consider Richelieu as an option. Still, my throat goes somewhat dry for the ten painful seconds before he speaks again.

“Oh! I s-see!” He exhales. “It is a g-good thing that Your Majesty is considering being amiable to the Q-Queen once more.”

I wonder where the hell he got that from, and then get a glimpse of Queen Anne, dancing with the Duke of Lorraine about three yards from Armand's table.

Ha! _The irony._

I still give Toiras a noncommittal nod, delighted that he believes me so _orderly._

“Well, Your M-Majesty is naturally ch-charming.” He advances, and I give him a doubtful look.

But though there is a playful tone in his voice, the soldier looks sincere, and I remember the way he burned in Fontainebleau, what he offered in La Rochelle.

“Still.” I huff with a fond smile. “How can I show myself more... engaging?”

Definitely wanting to provide a useful answer, Jean sits back in his chair to think, and it allows Schomberg next to him, more than probably drunk by now, to add his contribution to the conversation he overheard.

“Has Your Majesty tried gifts?” He inquires with a knowing smile.

“Of course he has, General, he's not _stupid_.” a gruff voice cuts in from my other side, and to my sheer surprise, it is Treville, who barely said a word since the beginning of the ball, shifting his chair closer with a shrug.

Dear God, my glorious soldiers of France are _pissed. _

I bite on a fit of laughter.

“I meant, of course, the gift of time.” Schomberg defends himself with a vague gesture around my head. “His Majesty is so busy a few hours of his days are truly priceless.”

“Your Majesty composes excellent music.” Treville slurs and this man talking about _ballets_ is something I was persuaded I'd die without knowing. “How about a song?”

“Or an affectionate letter” Schomberg fights back, reaching for a bottle he would be very unreasonable to open.

“A secret rendezvous in the gardens could be fine.” Treville opposes.

Schomberg chortles, popping the bottle open all the same, “In December?”

The Captain just grunts and rubs his forehead in exasperation.

A long minute of inebriated silence passes around me that I spend watching them embarrass themselves for my sheer amusement more than reacting to their suggestions, God forgive me. But after a while, Toiras speaks, quite sober, deadly serious, and all other mouths fall shut.

“Just be k-kind, Your Majesty.” He says. “You can be angry, you know, and s-still be kind.”

I slowly turn to him in disbelief, but then again, there has never been anything but sincerity in those eyes of his, and it sometimes irritates me more than anything. 

_Kind, really? _

What does it mean, _kind?_ Has kindness ever brought anything to a King? Has kindness ruled a country, has kindness vanquished enemies? Would kindness shut my mother up, would kindness make my wife French? _How in the world is kindness of any use to me? _

I almost punch the table in rage, but looking away, I catch a glimpse of Armand, showing signs of fatigue, and asking La Valette for support as he excuses himself. Before he exits the ballroom, he searches for me, of course, finds my gaze and bows subtly, making me smile before I think it through, his disappearance otherwise unnoticed.

_God, I want this man. _

In my Council, and in my bed.

He offered me a whole City, dedicated it to my own name.

_“Mon Roi” _he breathed, and though I was dying down there, I don't think I had ever been any happier.

I need him functioning, I prefer him peaceful.

I like him content.

_Kind. _

It raises more questions than it solves.


	13. December the 24th 1628, Study, the Palais-Cardinal.

I tried. I swear, I tried.

I want this man. _God, I need him_.

I found myself sitting on my bed that night, staring at the darkest of skies, without a moon, without a star, wondering how I had come to this. What was God’s plan, _what was it_, as he made anger the only thing that helped me to survive through these wretched loveless years, only to deem it useless one fine day?

But there was no point in howling at the Heavens. I knew, by then, I couldn’t cower away from fate anymore. No bargain, no control, no lesser sin. It was Armand, only Armand.

And to have Armand back at my feet, I needed to be _kind._

Let’s see, I thought, what had already worked before. What did I do that he would consider kind?

He seemed to appreciate public statements of affection, like having his seat next to mine for dinner, getting his share of my wine and attention. I could give him more of that, but it would be just politics, wouldn't it? It would be a gesture aimed at the whole world, but not at him alone. It wouldn't truly be _kind_.

_“I meant, of course, the gift of time.” _

Oh.

Maybe he'd like to spend some _private time_ with me.

Dinner. The two of us.

Very well.

  
  


I had dinner brought to both of us alone, after a work session in his study, surprising him with his favourite food. Truth be told, I had known this man for five good years, and I had no clue about what he liked to eat, I had to ask Charpentier for that. His answer was _most disappointing._ Bread, dried fruit and cheese, for God’s sake, it’s no mystery this man is thin as a rope and constantly dying.

Just like last time, the idiot naturally assumed I was only offering an opportunity to prolong work, and moved to lay down maps and accounts on the dinner table. Just like last time, I pushed away finance and state business with a firm smile and poured him wine. Just like last time, once politics were off the table, I found myself stuck with my unbearable lack of conversation skills again, and I had to grip my knife and fork to stop myself from yelling in frustration.

I can’t bloody talk. I am the King of France, and I can’t talk.

Everybody knows it, I’ve seen the pamphlets, and I’ve seen the satires. When they don’t write of me stuttering, they write of me as silent as a dead fish.

I never cared much. I never needed to talk a lot. Barking orders always sufficed. Anger, fury, authority and threat had perfectly made up for my lack of speech all my bloody life, except that night because I had to be _kind._ A palpable, irritating stillness stretched between us for almost half an hour, and I swear I was ready to give up, kick that table into bits and leave, but I don’t know why I suddenly remembered a bright morning in La Rochelle.

“_You've been of very good service_” I breathed into his ear.

How loud he moaned then.

Oh, yes, right.

There are some words he likes to hear.

_There is something he wants from me._

I turned to him, gestured at the pile of documents on his desk behind us, and mumbled something about the efficiency of his work. He smiled, nodded his thanks, assured me once more than every hour spent to my service was gladly given, and God, I wanted more than bloody politeness. Well, I thought, maybe I should have praised something else than his work then. Oh, Hell, _how hard those things were_.

“I have no doubt about your devotion to the Crown,” I mused, “and I feel fortunate, as it blesses my purposes with your remarkable wits.”

His eyes widened in shock, and when he lowered his head in confused thankfulness, I thought I saw his cheeks reddening. His shoulders dropped, and I recognised those veiled eyes from earlier, more inviting times, God, _Yes_. That. I wanted more of _that._ Fire roared in my guts, mighty and wild, too long denied. Impatience had me biting my own cheeks, but I didn’t move.

  
_I am more than my anger._

Well, I still needed wine. I poured myself a generous glass of Bourgogne, emptied it in one gulp, took a deep breath and watched him, truly _watched _him for a while.

I could have complimented him on his hands, his eyes, but it would have been ridiculous. He’s not a young maiden in white lace, and I’ll never be a bloody gentleman. I find him beautiful, it’s true. I shouldn’t, God knows how I shouldn’t, but I do. I like his silver hair, Hell, I adore it.

But this man is so deep in self-hatred he’d think I’m just mocking him.

I might find a way to make him understand I find him attractive one day, but I’ll die, I swear, before I’ll just _say it out loud._

What does he need? I thought.

_This man gave you a whole City, come on, what does he need to hear?_

“Your wits aren’t the only highlight of your soul.” I breathed. “You are also one of the bravest men I have come to know.”

With that, he gave a violent start and stared at me with a small gasp. His damaged hands slowly rose to his mouth, and his eyes of anthracite broke into tears instantly.

Out of pure instinct, my hand brushed his cheek, and Heavens, he didn’t flinch, God, _yes_. More of that. I remembered, my breath shortening, that he only refused my touch because he thought himself unworthy of it.

If I proved him wrong, well, maybe he’d change his mind.

Flames were rising high, everywhere on my skin, demanding him, _everything of him, and right now_.

The hand that was stroking his face trembled in irritation, and the hand that wasn’t clenched in a tight fist, oh, how easy it would have been to grab his hair, yank his head backwards and devour his mouth.

He would have yielded. He always did.

But I owed him more than that. More than a shell filled with fury.

I needed him functioning. I preferred him peaceful.

_I liked him content._

So I told him he was loyal, I told him he was wise. I told him this mad resolve everyone feared had pleased me more than gentler virtues ever had. He cried, trembling in emotion, and as my hand passed close to his mouth, his own fingers wrapped around it.

He kissed my palm. _He kissed it twice._

I almost roared in triumph.

I wanted more, I wanted everything, but when he let go of my hand, it returned to my side of the table, and I just smiled, switching to the new equipment of his Red Guards.

  
I tamed my own beast to soothe another, I learned to wait, and Schomberg was right. I gave it to him, after all. _The gift of time. _

I left his apartments with nothing more than what he allowed me to take, isn't that _kindness_, at least?

The week after, I composed a song for him. Well, it was an _oratorio_, so it was destined for Mass above all, but I offered him the manuscript, and he understood all the same.

His eyes turned glassy, and he moved to refuse, babbling about this being much more than he deserved, and I swear I shouted like a rabid dog about me being _the only judge of that_, my hand flying to grip his collar before I thought it out.

  
He stepped back in raw terror, and I thought I had ruined it all, so before the shadows of La Rochelle crawled back upon his face, I closed my eyes, breathed in, breathed out, counted to three and gently insisted.

“I wrote it as a tribute to your devotion” I soothed. “And it isn’t quite that good. Don’t let it lay forgotten in one of my drawers just like the rest of those mediocre things I compose.”

His fear turned into protest, he told me he knew, before even hearing it, that this would be his personal favourite, and he took the sheets from my hands with warm, shaking fingers.

Later that day, a huge wooden case was delivered to my chambers, with a single note bearing his signature. Again, he had thickened his first name there.

  
**_Armand_.** He wanted me to call him that way.

  
  
Inside the box, I found a magnificent hunting pistol, delicately carved in priceless black wood from the colonies and the rarest, smoothest ivory. On the cross, a genuine artist had chiselled my family’s coat of arms and a glorious equestrian figure. The mechanical firing device was the latest, most advanced, God, this man _knew _how to make gifts, and he made mine look pathetic.

I growled in vexation, _how dare he flaunt his superiority at my face again?_

But that gun was an old dream of mine, and truth be told, as I weighed and tested it in my hands, _for once_, I couldn’t stay angry for long.

Yesterday night, I proposed a walk in the gardens. The weather was freezing, a wicked wind pushing frost deep into the skin of the Earth, and I know I am the only one to enjoy walks in wintertime, but he hasn’t been so hard to persuade. What has been hard, on the other hand, was to get rid of my usual escort. Mother grunted like a wounded boar, spitting all kinds of protests about me spending too much time with _the sorcerer_. I bit my lips in pained irritation and turned around without a clear answer.

I lead him around the dormant flowerbeds, talking about the rosebushes my father used to grow for his mistresses. I showed him the particular charms of frozen fountains, and though he refused to touch the frost and the ice, his fragile hands hidden in his heavy fur coat, his smile as I did so for him was delightfully bright. I told him going out in this wretched weather was the best way I ever found to speak without indiscrete ears, and he genuinely _laughed_.

He almost slipped upon the smooth tiles of the arcades, and as I grabbed his arm to support him, he visibly leaned into the touch. I enjoyed them, after all, the rewards for my patience.

I enjoyed them a lot, _the benefits of being kind._

As our walk took us back to the stronghold of his apartments, guarded with a full regiment of fifty Musketeers by now, he shrugged off his cloak, and I took his hands in mine. They were frozen despite the thick white fur, and I made a short remark about it, I don’t remember what exactly. What I do remember, is his gentle leaning forward, until our foreheads almost touched, and how raspy and pleading was his voice as he breathed,

“I trust Your Majesty to be wise enough not to judge the rest of me only by my hands.”

White-hot flames crushed my heart, and my hands went for his face. I pressed my body against his so hard he fell back against the door, and I chuckled, my head already dizzy with lust. I gave him three seconds to tell me he didn’t want it. He used them to moan and join our mouths before I did.

It was only a kiss, though a deep, and famished one. It was only a kiss, and yet it felt like the most glorious of victories. As I felt his timid tongue passing on my lower lip, I heard the roars of a thousand souls, lifted by the wind to bright clear skies.

_Lift your hat, Marshal of France. _My Red Beast had returned to me.

It didn’t last since Charpentier came to knock on the other side of that very door soon enough, but I didn’t mind. This was a promise, this was an oath, a peace treaty signed over defeated nightmares.

It was much more than triumph against the enemy. It was a triumph against myself, and surprisingly, it did suffice for that one night.

  
***

I woke up this morning with a smile I had lost for a long time. Instead of jumping out of my sheets and ringing Pottier's bell as always, I stayed in bed for a while, rubbing my eyes, and staring at the sun rising upon frozen gardens. 

I smelled cake and bread being baked in the kitchens, and I remembered Christmas Eve. I had spent months picturing this holy day darkened by the deaths of La Rochelle, or by a sick, damaged Richelieu. Well, what was more likely by now was a parade through Paris, distributing gifts to my good people, a fine meal after Mass, the most excellent Church music, and Armand sitting peaceful right at my side all along.

It seemed for once God had decided to brighten my skies.

I got up and got dressed, humming quietly and, now I think about it, I should have guessed. _I should have learned about good signs. _

Now, as I open the door to my study, along with five of her favourite puppets, _Mother_ is there, and my song dies deep in my throat.

She smiles and coos and offers to share my breakfast. Her voice is high-pitched, reeking of hypocrisy. I wince in disgust. Why am I still sitting down and eating with her, then? I have no idea.

Laziness, I suppose, as it always proved easier to spare her feelings than to engage conflict. You don't argue with a jennet as it refuses to move ahead. You just sit on the side of the path and have a drink until the tide of its mind turns.

Also, perhaps, that foolish, yet undying flicker of hope that on this bright, cheerful morning, she'd finally grant me one minute of sincerity, one blessed moment of affection.

This is why I smile, nod and sit down facing her. Laziness and hope.

_Two equally unforgivable sins. _

Watching her stuff her mouth with insanely sugared pastries so early in the day makes me physically sick, but she speaks quite amiably I must admit, and I can't help feeling warmed by the ghost of everything she could have been. I woke up almost happy, it must have made me _weak._

I look at her fat fingers bulging in and out of her thick rings, trying to remember what her hands used to look like in those distant, blurry years before my father was bled to death when she still deigned to brush my hair.

All of it long gone, all of it so often dreamed, and so little lived.

My mother, taking so much space in front of me, and yet, always leaving a gaping hole inside.

What do I have to do to earn a true embrace? What war do I need to win, what wealth do I need to gather? Who do I need to kill, Mother, who do I need to -

_Oh. This one, I know. _

She wants my Armand dead.

And just as I gulp bitterly around my slice of bread, of course, _of course_, she starts again.

“So, _mio figlio_,” she muses with the subtlety of a ballista, “what is the news of this demon you persist on keeping in your service? Do you know he barely dares to look me in the eyes now? This monster has so much to hide; it's honestly horrifying.”

I close my eyes, cursing the heartbreak in my chest, every time,_ every time. _She never wanted to share breakfast with me. She never wanted to hear me speak.

She doesn't care, and _I never learn. _

This is what I get for succumbing to joy. This is what I get for abandoning anger.

“The Cardinal is recovering from his trials of war.” I breathe, miserable. “He has suffered a great deal for his country there.”

“Ha!” She laughs, dark and menacing. “And so have you, blinded by this man's warlike stubbornness. A dying son, coughing up blood and barely talking, this is what he sent me back from that wretched beach! Ah, a wonderful advisor, indeed!”

My fist clenches around my glass so tight I hear it crack, **_shut up_**_, don't you dare pretend you care for me, you never did, you never will. You only want him dead because he stopped playing the lute in your bedroom. Because he doesn't want to suffocate under your weight anymore. _

He's mine, now, you have never been his endgame.

A ladder, not a refuge.

His sanctuary, now, _it's me._

  
But no matter how I growl in protest, she goes in loops again, demon, liar, traitor, devil. She tells me I need to think about taking his duties away from him before he ruins the Kingdom, and she tells me ten times, at least, that I need to send him back to the hellhole he once came from.

I want to bark at her face, I want to shout until she cries, I swear, I’d lock her up, I’d have her gone, but dear God_, I am her son, how can I want to hurt her so?_

Move on, senseless mare, move on, _please_. I already want you exiled, I fear one day I’ll want you dead, and those shameful thoughts are driving me _insane_

This was such a nice morning, but now I think about it, I should have known, I should have guessed. This is my life, this is my fate, an endless dance of loveless days.

She goes on and on, sinful, scandalous, unfaithful, filthy. My head starts to hurt. I remember, hazy and unsure, the way she checked our cravats before she let Gaston and me run out of our bedroom.

”Straighten your back, Louis.” She used to say. “You look even smaller than your brother.”

She used to call me Louis.

Or did she, really? How would I know?

_So often dreamed, so little lived. _

She wants me to kill, now, the only man to ever warm my soul. Oh, God, please hear my prayer, you let my father die because a fool saw it fit. Will you force me to push away whatever’s left of my mother too?

_Is there no world where I can keep her, and my Armand? _

“Is there any way you could be appeased about Richelieu?” I almost beg, and I hate myself for it.

She clucks in joy, delighted I finally asked.

She superbly fakes to think about it, as if that wasn't the only line of thought she's been having for a whole bloody year, and she ends up spitting, between dirty Italian curses and loud rattling of jewellery.

“I want him to crawl and beg for forgiveness. I want him to _kneel_ at my feet and confess his crimes. Then, maybe, I'll reconsider my opinion.”

  
\- **_clang_**_!_ -

My glass shatters, and that herbal water Citoys forces me to drink every day splatters on my plate with shards of broken glass, y_ou mindless mare, how dare you even think about it?_

  
Get this image out of your filthy mind right now, Florentian swine, _he'll never kneel for you. _Never.

He's mine. I won him. _I earned him. _

She gets up in a whirl of fake concern, trying to separate bloodied shards from my fingers, _look at what he makes you do_, she says, _God, I need you to shut up, please. _I want to have you murdered in your sleep, and Lord, have mercy, I am your son.

  
It has to end, this nightmare, please, _it has to end. _

I might be crying, I am not sure.

“I'll ask him to write to you.” I might be saying. I am not sure.

But she closes her bloody mouth for a second, nodding a stern, mildly satisfied approval, and I let out a shuddering breath.

This looked like such a nice morning.

  
Definitely, _I'll never learn. _

*** 

There is one of the freshly appointed Guards of the Cardinal who looks very promising. I saw him carry out missions of trust like informant contact or note delivery, and when Richelieu appears in public, this one is very often the closest Red Guard around him. It would almost seem he has grown a liking for the Red Beast, _now, what were the odds?_

Lord, what's his name again, Jussieu, Jussac? I don't know.

What I know, by the way his face crumbles in worry and fear as I stride towards him at the Cardinal's door, is that he’s obviously never seen a furious, miserable man.

He takes a look at my hand, loosely bandaged by the unskilled fingers of my mother, blood already seeping through, and opens his mouth to ask something, but I raise my other hand at his face, growling.

“I swear to God, _don't_.”

His teeth clack, he shuts it, _thank Heavens,_ and he just bows, letting me in.

The door of the Cardinal's study closes behind my back, and I feel blessed, once more, by the safety of those rooms. She won't follow me here. She won't be heard from here. I close my eyes for a second, let out a strained breath. My head is killing me, and though it must be everyday bread for Armand, to me, it never happens.

God, I'm growing mad.

That's what she'll do, she'll drive me insane, lock me up into my rooms again, and claim the throne for Gaston. Isn't that her plan, _isn't that her aim? _

Gaston, the cherished son, Louis, barely noticed. _Oh, father, if you could come back, only for an hour, I need so much of you. _

The door to Richelieu's bedroom clicks open, and I blink out of my misery. Armand appears, sliding in the room with soundless grace, _oh God, I forgot, Christmas Eve._

The formal robes. He is covered in heavy draping of blood red velvet, embroidered in discrete, brighter carmine, and has thrown on his shoulders his ceremonial cloak, a masterpiece of brocade lined with the whitest of ermines. His silver hair pinned back into his hat, his face well-rested and smiling cheerfully, heavens _is he beautiful. _

There must be a world, dear God, when I can keep this man close, and still have whatever's left of my family?

Every inch of my skin howls for his embrace, where I could let go of the pain and ask for his advice, but really, what would it look like? I am the King of France, he looks up to me. I can't just cry on his shoulder and bare my frailty before his eyes, I am his Master, for God's sake.

I can't be weak. Not in front of him. _Never_.

I still welcome his spontaneous rushing towards me like warm wine in cold evenings. I don't waste time ordering, or even asking, he obviously wants it just as badly as I do. So I don't say a word, cupping his cheeks and kissing him hard, immolating myself in my own hellfire. He whimpers in my mouth, because he noticed my wounded hand, _oh, never mind that, just part your lips and let me in. _

Bless him, he does.

I make it last, caressing his mouth, his jaw, his neck, leaving wet, lustful trails below his ear, devouring his cries of pleasure, and going back to his mouth with hungry grunts. I make it last because I know there will be _talking_ right after, and God, I don't want any of it.

But sooner or later we need to breathe, and I pull apart, shaky, heaving, my skin burning, my cock half-hard. By the trembling of his thin frame, I guess Armand is just the same, ready to give much more on the slightest of my words, _oh, this could have been a perfect morning. _

Now I think about it, I should have guessed.

This is my life, this is my fate, _an endless dance of loveless days. _

He smiles again, his lips reddened and wet, a truly maddening sight. But he still frowns, humbly taking my bandaged hand in his, inspecting it with dazed, though clever eyes. He knows even I could have tended it better myself, and it doesn't leave many options as to who exactly has done this. The bandage must reek of her perfume, and if there is another man in Paris who knows this smell by heart, isn't it him, after all?

He doesn't ask, he doesn't speak, bless him, my dear Armand.

He only tuts reproachfully and goes for a basin of warm water. He carries it to a table nearby, washes his hands, and comes back to unwrap my own with light, deft fingers. When he finds the deep cuts hiding there, he gasps and has a terrified glance for my face.

I shake my head, but I know, I have to at least _say_ something.

“I'm fine.” I lie.

He deserves better. But that's the best I can do for now.

Surprisingly he just nods, the smart creature he is, and lays a delicate kiss on my cheek. It's short, and it's shy, but it feels so bloody _innocent_ I almost tear up again, _oh, for Heaven's sake_.

I woke up almost happy. It must have made me weak.

He cleans my wounds, then goes to a drawer in his cupboard, and am I not surprised to find he has his own stack of bandages. He wraps my hand better than a physician would, the soft pressure gradually turning sharp pain into dull, throbbing inconvenience.

“I would advise you to wear supple gloves today, Your Majesty.” He gently whispers as he cuts the last stripe of linen. “Those wounds will swell as they heal.”

I nod, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.

  
Lord, the day hasn't even begun, and I pray I could go back to bed and be forgotten by all. I can barely look at him because he has never been so graceful, so enticing, and every throb of my wounded hands reminds me my mother wants him killed. She's there outside, waiting for me, in venom or fake concern, and she won't get tired, and she won't get bored, because her brain is the one of a hog, and she has nothing else to do all day. She won't let go until he's dead, but God, _look at him_, he is everything I need.

This nightmare, it has to end.

While I stare at the emptiness between his bookshelves and the windows, he puts away the basin and balm, wiping his hands on a wet cloth. He steps back close to me, his dark, fervent stare searching for mine, and I have no doubt, _why should I_, that he sees all my wounds there, not only physical ones. Fatigue crawls upon my back, and I only wish for his embrace, but I cannot be weak, not in front of him.

I repress a shudder, swallowing tears once more, and move to walk away, _now, we need to discuss the ceremonies of the day - _

But I am stopped by the most gentle of hands, carefully laid on my arm. I turn back to him, and I should have guessed. Armand, he knows, he always does.

Understanding shines bright in his sharp eyes, and I feel nailed to the floor by a force beyond my control. There lies a long, warm minute of silence, his stare wrapping me in such devotion I almost suffocate. Cold winter light seeps through the windows to collide in his silver hair, making it white, making it glow, _God, is he magnificent._

I open my mouth to tell him to stop, just stop, it's unbearable, stop being perfect to me, don't you know she wants you dead, and she won't stop, and she won't rest. You're everything I need, I swear, but God above, she is my own _mother_.

Is it God's plan, _is he so cruel?_

Was it God's plan to grant me this precious man and a ghost of a mother, only, on one fine day, to force me to choose between the two? Is this my life, is this my fate?

This nightmare, _it has to end. _

I open my mouth to tell him to stop, but right as I do, he lowers his eyes, drops his shoulders, and _God_, he sinks to his knees.

Softly, slowly, in a whisper of velvet, he descends on the floor in the most graceful move, his robes pooling around his legs, painting the parquet in rich scarlet roses. He lays both hands, delicately joined, on my left thigh, looks up at me and smiles.

“What could I do for your service, _Mon Roi?_” he breathes invitingly, and I barely dared to hope I'd see that miracle ever again.

I will not cry, I can't be weak. Not with him, never. I am his Master.

He's everything. She wants him dead.

He brings me life. I am her son.

  
I cannot choose, is God so cruel?

There must be a world when I can keep you both.

  
Forgive me, Armand, please forgive me, _but this nightmare, it has to end. _

“You could apologise to my Mother.”

What I see shattering in his eyes was so immense I can't name it. He pales so fast it's frightening, and lets out a short gasp, as someone shot straight in the heart. He stumbles on his feet in a jolting, broken motion, and presses his hands against his chest as in pure agony, taking three cautious, disbelieving steps back. He only takes a few seconds before he composes himself though, his blank mask of dignity falling on his face like a curtain, his back straightening, his chin held high.

“I beg your pardon?” he rasps, his eyes freezing by the second,_ oh don't look at me like that._

“I'm not asking you to be sincere!” I panic, my hands flying in the air. “Just write a letter, charm her a little, make it look like you mean it, _lie to her,_ for God' sake it isn't something you're not _used _to!”

I bite my lips the second those words get out of my mouth, _too late_.

Anger, again. _I never learn. _

I see his jaw clench, even from three yards away, his dark eyes narrowing dangerously. His hands twitch once or twice, and he turns away sharply, pacing around the study, always at a safe, insufferable distance.

“May I remind Your Majesty” he very quietly states, “of the impressive, relentless energy the Queen Mother spends compromising the State? She placed incompetent, corrupt henchmen at every key position of the Louvre, and continues to be persistent in her private letters to her contacts in Spain.”

Fury and pain crush my very soul. Helpless, exhausted, losing balance, I fall into the dark, and stride towards him, banging my fist on an armchair as I pass by, _is it my voice shouting so loud? _

“Don't you think I know that? I'm telling you to write a bloody letter, not to canonise her! Just lay down a few soothing lies on a sheet of paper, _Cardinal_, there's no need to crawl back to her rooms to play the lute again, is there?”

He freezes in his moves, breathless as if punched in the guts, but anger has taken me back, and I'm a blind puppet once more. I step closer, teeth bared, shaking in wrath, and if I don't _tear him apart_, I fear, it's only because I'm tired.

He bites his lips, his eyes unsteady, inching away from me to his desk, where his tense, shaking fingertips brush a few notes I recognise from Joseph.

“I have disturbing evidence of her being quite aware of Queen Anne's letters to Buckingham,” he muses matter-of-factly, “to a point where it would be unwise to consider her a stranger to the whole plot.”

_That's not the point, you filthy snake, I know she's no good, can't you understand? _The remains of her are all the family I have left.

She used to call me_ Louis, _in those forlorn dreams I had.

“Cardinal, _enough_.” I snarl.

He doesn't look at me straight away, he keeps his eyes on his notes, and he is delicate, it's true but cowardly, he never has been. When he turns to look at me, the embers of anthracite also burn in mighty rage, and I furtively remember he too is a man of power.

“As I have said before” he hisses between his teeth, “that woman's purpose has never been, and never will be even _remotely close_ to Your Majesty's interests.”

“_I know, you bloody beast, but she's my **mother!**_”

My voice broke on the last word. I didn't hear it, I saw it in his eyes. There are tears on my cheeks. I don't feel them, I sense them in his stance.

His eyes widen in realisation, and what twists his pale face, I believe, is a crushing, merciless _fear_. His breath wheezes instantly, and his knees give up on him. He has to lean against his desk to stay upright, terror and agony washing over his gaze. He stays that way for a long while, between laboured breaths and painful shivers, as if the Earth itself had shattered beneath his feet.

At the end of it, he averts his eyes, docile once more, but _frozen_ alright.

“It will be done as you require, Your Majesty.” He eventually exhales. “I couldn't bear to be the source of any ill feeling between Your Majesty and his mother.”

I let out a relieved huff, and walk to him in nervous steps, gesturing for him to look at me.

“Armand, listen, I –”

_Oh, God, no. **No**._

He turned back to me, and I see him, he's right there, in front of me, eyes cold and distant, face blank, mouth tense.

He is there, _he is there, the monster of La Rochelle. _

I've lost Armand.

_I've ruined everything. _

Is this God's plan, is he so cruel?

Fool that I am, there has never been a world when I can keep them both. If I refuse to choose, _then I'll have none of them._

I step back, nauseated. I hear myself ask him politely if he's ready to accompany me for the Christmas celebrations through Paris. He always likes this particular event. He shakes his head, shrugging his coat off his shoulders, his eyes barely registering me as he sits pliantly at his desk.

  
“I am not feeling very well.” He lets out, mechanical and bleak. “if Your Majesty would have the kindness to excuse me, it seems I have a letter to write.”

My old anger kept me alive so far only to destroy my brightest hopes today. _I ruined everything. _

  
I close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, but it doesn't help much. I spin around in a loud curse, rushing to my rooms, locking the doors twice.

I am called by valets, I am called by ambassadors. It's time to go outside, it's time for my duty, but all I can do is grab a chair in a violent grunt, send it shattering against a wall, breaking a set of glasses there, and tearing a nasty gash in a portrait of Saint Louis.

It's Christmas Eve upon my cherished France, my people wait outside the doors, and all I can do is fall on the floor of my bedroom and _scream_.

I scream, demented by pain, hugging my stomach, furious, desolate.

I scream at the face of God, I scream at my wretched life.

Never alone, always lonely, doomed to thick air and icy skin.

Damaged, inept, unable to hold on anything good that's given to me.

Forevermore an empty shell filled with fury.

_An empty shell, filled with fury. _

_*** _


End file.
